


The Bittersweet Between My Teeth

by SFDoll



Category: iZombie (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Amnesia, Angst, Awkward Tension, Blaine DeBeers Has Feelings, Blood and Violence, Domestic Fluff, Drama & Romance, F/M, Fake/Pretend Relationship, Fear of Confronting Their Feelings, Hurt/Comfort, Mutual Pining, Peyton Charles Is a Badass, Plot Twists, Protectiveness, Secrets, mystery investigation
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-05-29
Updated: 2019-01-05
Packaged: 2019-05-14 16:16:16
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 7
Words: 53,151
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14772944
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/SFDoll/pseuds/SFDoll
Summary: "Blaine? It's Liv. There's been an incident, and I need you to come to the hospital.  It's Peyton."When Angus's bloody rampage through City Hall leaves Peyton battered and missing her memories of the last six months, Liv reaches out to Blaine with a request he can't refuse--even if he has to turn himself inside out emotionally to do it.  But what will happen to Blaine and Peyton's bittersweet happiness...?  Because no lie can last forever.





	1. The Words that Stopped the World

Blaine cursed under his breath at the general incompetence of his employees as he rushed to answer the ringing phone before a potentially loaded client might decide to take their fancy dinner party to a restaurant with better service. "Romero's. How may I help you?" Blaine answered trying to hide any trace of harriedness in his voice.

There was a pause on the other end before a female voice finally responded, "Blaine? It's Liv. There's been an incident, and I need you to come to the hospital." Liv's tone was all business, but her voice sounded thick. Liv seemed to be perpetually emotionally invested in some case or another for the Seattle police. He'd learned one thing over time though: an emotionally distraught Olivia Moore meant trouble--if not an outright trap--in Blaine's experience.

"I didn't realize I was on your list of emergency contacts," Blaine responded with fake surprise. "Look, I don't know what's going on down there, but I have a business to run, so not involved is how I want to stay." He was already pulling the phone away when Liv said the magic words to freeze his hand.

"It's Peyton." The silver plastic of the cordless phone returned to his ear immediately.

"How serious is it that you're calling _me_?" Blaine asked. His heart hammered in his chest far above the normal pulse for a zombie, and he could feel his stomach roil at the possibilities flashing through his mind--a slideshow of the worst images his brain could conjure to use against him. He held himself completely still almost afraid to breathe as he waited for Liv's answer.

"Your father lead a rampage against City Hall," Liv announced. "There is a pile of debrained bodies down at the morgue from him attacking people with a hammer." Blaine staggered as if his world had suddenly chosen to spin in the opposite direction, leaving him desperately clinging to the wooden podium to not be thrown to his knees.

"For some reason he decided to slam Peyton into the wall and leave her there instead. Either he left her alive, or he got interrupted. Maybe she got really lucky." He could hear the hesitation in Liv's voice.

"I don't think there is such a thing as lucky where Angus is concerned. How is she? Or do you really just want me there because of my dad?" _She's alive. She's alive_ , his mind repeated in relief.

Liv took a deep breath. "Peyton has a skull fracture and a concussion. The CT scan was good, no signs of edema or hemorrhaging. They're running more tests including an MRI and keeping her overnight as a precaution. The doctors expect her to recover fully, but for now she doesn't remember the last few months. She thinks you're still together, and she keeps asking for you."

"That's... unexpected. A bit ironic really," Blaine said mostly to himself.

"If she weren't in such a panic, I'd just tell her everything and keep you as far away from her as possible." Liv didn't try to coat the venom in her voice, and Blaine knew her hatred for him still burned as strongly as the last time she'd spoken to him.

Blaine was already grabbing his keys and heading down to the kitchen. "Too bad for you that wasn't an option. The good news is I'll be on my best behavior. I'm on my way," he announced, quickly jotting down the room number before relaying instructions to his staff and heading out the door.

The utilitarian hospital hallways crawled in predictable patterns that were clearly designed to create a functional space with the absolute minimum of architectural personality. Walls clad in bland colors of scrubbable paint and industrial tile and carpet framed the odd piece of carefully inoffensive art--mostly landscapes or still-lifes with fruits or flowers. The police guard at the hospital room door was an unexpected treat, but Blaine was privately glad for every bit of security standing between Peyton and Angus McDonough. After being cleared Blaine took a breath to steel himself and stepped inside, noting the large dry erase board with the names and schedules of the nurses who would be attending Peyton, who had apparently been assigned a single room.

As Blaine entered the room Peyton turned her face towards the door. Her sandy brown hair had been pulled back into a soft bun secured in an elastic, and soft curls tumbled free to frame her unchararistically pale face and hover against the bleached white of the pillowcase. Her green eyes shone even from the shadows caused by the beginnings dark circles blossoming beneath her skin. Sheets and a cream colored blanket covered her to her waist, and above that he could see the abstract blue and green patterns swirling across the cotton of her hospital gown. Her eyes lit up when she saw him, and Blaine's breath caught in his throat. _Never thought I'd see that look again._

"There you are!" Peyton exclaimed, her voice filled with relief. "I've been going out of my head worrying. I don't remember what the hell happened today, and nobody's telling me crap all." She side-eyed Liv and Ravi, and she frowned her disapprobation at their lack of forthcoming information. "I was afraid that maybe Boss was back, that he might be here any minute, and that he'd done something to you that nobody wanted to tell me about," Peyton told him, extending her arms for him to come forward into her embrace.

He leaned down to gingerly hug her, afraid that he might accidentally bump heads and cause her pain. Even in the cold of the hospital's air conditioning, she felt warm in his arms, and he marvelled at the way she fit so perfectly against his chest. He pressed his lips softly to her cheek, suddenly awkwardly unsure where to put his hands in case she had some injury he didn't know about. "I'm fine. No visits from Mr. Boss. Just scared the hell out of me when Liv called to tell me you were hurt." He had finally settled on her cheek and between her shoulder blades as the safest places to rest his hands.

Meanwhile Peyton was busy trying to kiss every inch of his face, despite Liv's sudden need to clear her throat every few moments. When Peyton's lips met his, Blaine struggled to remember to keep it chaste. He pulled away far sooner than he would have liked, but he knew that Peyton would hate him again soon enough when her memories returned. No need to fuel that hatred by letting her feel he'd taken advantage of this situation. "I stopped by the giftshop and picked up a little something for you," he smiled. He produced a brand new deck of cards from his pocket and handed the deck to Peyton, who broke into a smile that warmed him from the center of his chest.

"Ooh! I am gonna own you at Egyptian Rat Screw!" she proclaimed, and her sheer glee made Blaine laugh with her.

"I have no doubt, but let's skip the frenetic hand slapping until the doctors clear you for it. You can own me at gin or poker tonight. Maybe even Old Maid if I'm feeling really protective." He brushed his fingers across the back of her hand. "Besides, that way your friends can join in too. No worries about an accidental zombie scratch in the heat of the moment," he replied, cocking his head towards Liv and Ravi. He watched Peyton unwrap the thin plastic sleeve sealing the pack. He couldn't say that he was the zombie afraid of accidentally scratching her.

"As much as I hate to admit it, Old Maid might be just about my speed tonight," Peyton yawned. "Things are still kinda fuzzy in here," she said, bringing her hand to the side of her head for emphasis, "and not having to try to remember a bunch of rules or hands sounds more attractive than it should."

"Yeah," Blaine drawled, remembering how he'd felt when the amnesia had started after he'd taken the second cure. Fuzzy details, blurring identitities, information that usually came so easily to hand just completely missing... "It can be pretty disconcerting," he commiserated.

Peyton looked at him with round eyes as though she'd forgotten about his amnesia entirely despite having just quoted him. Blaine had seen enough head wounds to know not only how quickly one could become disoriented but also how quickly the injury could turn dangerous. The sudden worry must've shown on his face because Peyton squeezed his hand, and Blaine smiled ruefully that the woman in the hospital was the one suddenly trying to comfort him.

Peyton wasn't the only one who'd noticed Blaine's reaction. "Is something wrong?" Liv asked, her voice tight as she uncrossed her arms from across her abdomen and moved closer to Peyton.

"I forgot for a moment that Blaine had amnesia," Peyton explained, waving her hand and giving a dismissive look. Liv nodded, and Blaine couldn't tell if her frown was over Peyton's momentary disorientation or the reminder of his "amnesia."

"That was about two sentences after using my own words about things being fuzzy right down to the hand gesture," Blaine supplied, and Peyton shot him a look for outing that particular detail. "Has this been happening a lot?" Blaine asked, turning to face Liv and Ravi for the first time. "Is this a new symptom I should be worried about?"

"It's not new, but we still want to keep an eye on it," Ravi answered. He drew himself up to his full height, and Blaine could tell that Ravi was trying to look his most imposing. Sensing the growing tension in the room, Peyton gave them all a sullen once over before turning away. Her eyes took on a faraway look, and Blaine wondered what tense private thoughts were occupying her mind. She closed her eyes and rubbed lightly at the spot between her eyebrows.

"The disorientation was more frequent and more intense earlier, the symptoms seem to be moving in the right direction," Liv added, visibly disturbed by the sight of Peyton's discomfort. She brushed a few hairs back from the side of Peyton's face, and Liv's voice took on a softer tone. "The periorbital ecchymosis--the bruising around the eyes--is a newer symptom, but that normally takes hours or even days to appear. Since the fracture is near the top of Peyton's forehead it didn't take too long for the blood from the injury to begin to pool." Liv looked up at the clock on the wall. "You're probably due for some more Tylenol, want me to check with the nurse about getting you some?" she asked, but Peyton shook her head.

"There didn't seem to be any sign of torn meninges or deeper injuries. They are supposed to bring her down to get an MRI shortly to confirm that and make sure that nothing has changed," Ravi finished, following Liv's lead and reigning in any trace of the earlier hostility that had been on the verge of erupting.

Blaine ran his fingertips lightly up and down the back of Peyton's neck, and she let her head tilt forward slightly with a sigh. "Just relax. Everyone is just tense because we're worried, but we're all going to behave. Nobody wants to stress you out or hurt you. Okay?" Blaine soothed in a calming voice.

"Yeah. Everybody just wants to protect me. Everyone's so protective that nobody will even tell me exactly how I got here," Peyton complained. "And I can't... I can't remember what happened." Peyton's breathing grew faster and louder, and her voice took on a ragged edge as she tried to force the memories into being. Her fingers rubbed at the bridge of her nose, and she closed her eyes tightly with a grimace of pain.

Liv adopted a motherly stance as she attempted to stem the rising tide of anxiety. "Sweetie, you've been through hell. Between the trauma and the injury, anxiety is a very common issue. We just don't want to trigger another panic attack on you."

"Liv, I remember kissing Blaine goodbye when we left the apartment for work, and the next thing I remember is waking up in a room full of dead people with their skulls cracked wide open! Excuse me if that makes me a little upset! I can only think of one enemy I have, but why would he do this? We could be on the verge of a full on zombie revelation!" Peyton lashed out. Blaine frowned to himself as he studied the situation. If Peyton had been this distraught earlier he could understand Liv's reluctance to possibly make Peyton hysterical by telling her just how big her memory gap truly was, but not knowing anything clearly was making things worse too.

He could see Liv bracing for a protest, and he decided he needed to cut in. "It's okay, Liv. I'll handle this," he announced, as he sat on the edge of Peyton's narrow bed to make it more comfortable for her to look him in the eye. "Peyton, there's another reason Liv and Ravi were waiting to talk about what happened. It's probably best if this comes from me." Peyton looked at him with a mixture of relief and trepidation, clearly concerned by the idea that such an answer might be best coming from Blaine. Liv, obviously afraid that Blaine was about to reveal the entirety of the situation, tried to warn him off with a vehement shake of her head while Ravi mouthed a warning to him.

Ignoring them Blaine took Peyton's hand. "Remember when you met my father at the meeting about the will?" he asked, petting the back of her hand.

"Yeah," Peyton responded. "He was an awful piece of work, so I kicked him out." The memory made Blaine smile faintly at the thought that Peyton had stood up to the man who had made his entire childhood a hellish nightmare. _Always the valiant knight on the white horse_ , Blaine thought with fond pride blossoming in his chest.

"We don't know the details, but it was my dad who was responsible for what happened at City Hall. He's been controlling a group of zombies, who are feeding on humans. He must have left you alive on purpose," Blaine told her in a gentle voice.

"Oh my God..." Peyton exhaled. Her already pale skin seemed to blanch further at the news. Liv was on the edge of rushing forward at the first sign that Peyton was about to have a meltdown. "There's no way to hide that. The truth about zombies is about to come out." Liv and Ravi both looked ready to strangle him, clearly prepared for the worst reaction from Peyton. Blaine couldn't guarantee they weren't right, but his instincts and personal experience told him that Peyton needed this.

Blaine made a soft, soothing noise sliding his hand to her shoulder and giving her a reassuring squeeze. "Yeah. It did. Filmore Graves handled it. My dad is currently public enemy number one. It's a lot to process, but I know how it feels to need some kind of anchor when your memory isn't there. There's no need to turn yourself inside out trying to remember things right this second. There's nothing for you to worry about, except getting better, okay? You'll be healed up and fighting the good fight again before you know it."

Peyton nodded, but she was shaking as she leaned forward to wrap herself around Blaine. He rubbed her back the same as when he'd held and comforted her in the wreck of Stacey Boss's offices. "You're safe now," Blaine promised. "Pops wanted you alive. He won't send anyone after you. Just as a precaution there's an armed cop outside the door, and I'll be here standing guard. The good doctors are here to help you through the medical stuff. You've got this."

Peyton nodded again. Her arms tightened around his neck. "Are we close to a war between humans and zombies?" she asked. Her eyes fell upon Liv--afraid for her best friend. She extended one hand for Liv to take, and Liv perched on the other side of the bed to clench Peyton's hand in hers. "It's a little tense, but so far we're working together," Liv reassured her, and she hugged Peyton from behind so that Peyton was craddled between Liv and Blaine.

"Well, if we're doing a group hug..." Ravi said. He stood behind Liv, and wrapped one arm around her and the other around Peyton's back. They were still all hugging her when the nurse came in to take Peyton for her MRI and chastized them for crowding onto the mattress.

Liv waited for Peyton to be out of the room before rounding on Blaine. "What the heck were you thinking? That could have backfired completely!"

"I was thinking that of the three people standing in this room, I'm the only one who has actually had amnesia," Blaine sneered. "It's scarier for her to not know anything at all, and all that silence was just making her think there was something so terrible that everyone was trying to hide it from her. I'm surprised the doctors haven't already spilled the beans about the rest of the memory gap," Blaine countered.

"You didn't get to see how panicked she was earlier, mate," Ravi chastened. "That was all on Liv and me."

"And exactly how long did you wait to call me? I understand being the last resort, but-"

"Enough, both of you!" Liv cut in. "We didn't wait that long. The ER has been crazy in the aftermath of the attack. We didn't even get to see her until shortly before I called. The important thing is we need to work out some ground rules for this arrangement, because we all need to be on the same page here. What if we all started telling her conflicting stories? There can't be anymore going maverick." She gave both of the men a commanding stare, and they nodded their acquiescence like children embarrassed by being caught in a selfish squabble.

Liv slouched into one of the vinyl cushioned visitor's chairs as she laid out the situation. "The doctors didn't tell her because she was already hysterical, and they didn't want to have to sedate her with a concussion. They need her alert for now. Most memory loss resolves within 24 hours. If it's more than three days though, we could be looking at brain damage. If the MRI is good she'll probably be released tomorrow morning. They'll want her to have a follow up on Monday no matter what."

Blaine could see exhaustion peeking through Liv's professional facade, and Ravi knelt at her side brushing his fingers through her hair and wrapping his arm around her back. Blaine raised his eyebrows as he realized for the first time that something had changed between the two.

"I pulled some strings with Filmore Graves so I can stand guard overnight. Then she'll probably hate me again in the morning, and we can go our separate ways. The worst case gives us a three-day weekend to keep this up," Blaine said.

Liv nodded. "And last Peyton remembers you were practically living in our apartment."

"Well, that's clearly not going to work," Ravi said. His voiced deepened as he added, "...for multiple reasons." He shared a meaningful look with Liv, and she placed her hand over his heart while clearly contemplating the situation.

"Sounds like it's more than just _my_ living arrangements being upset here," Blaine grinned unable to resist commenting any longer, and Ravi's face went on a journey as the tall doctor told Blaine to mind his own business and not to get any ideas. Blaine gave an easy shrug, and he pursed his lips while still grinning. "If it comes down to it just make up with some BS medical reason why she needs to sleep alone, and I can always camp out on your couch for a few nights. It'll be like old times," Blaine told Liv.

"I'm sure I can think of ten reasons for you to not sleep over at all, but point taken. Let's hope it doesn't come to that," Liv answered. She tried to hide her yawn behind her hand. "I think we could all use some coffee. Do you really plan to play guard dog all night?"

"Yeah," Blaine said. "Don't really expect any visits from Dear Ol' Dad, but the precaution doesn't hurt. And considering what Peyton last remembers, it might make her feel more comfortable for the moment."

When Peyton returned they broke into a game of old maid to distract themselves while waiting for any news from the doctor. Peyton lounged against the pile of pillows and beamed a tired, tranquil smile when Blaine made the occassional quip, and Liv and Ravi traded a continuous stream of verbal banter that Blaine now recognized as thinly veiled flirting.

The MRI was good. The coffee was bad. And the night was long and fitful. For everyone. After Liv and Ravi went home to get some sleep at the end of visiting hours, Blaine sat in a chair in the shadows alongside Peyton's bed, watching her sleep and wondering every time the nurse came in to wake her if this would be the time Peyton remembered the truth and told him to leave.


	2. Homecoming

"No angry calls from Peyton yet to tell us she got her memory back and that we're in the dog house forever for calling _him_ in," Liv mused to herself, resting her cheek against Ravi's chest and combing her fingers through the patch of dark hair between his pecs with an absent look in her eyes.

"Peyton _loves_ you, Liv, and she knows how much you love _her_. Once she's done being furious, she's going to understand," Ravi reassured her. He rested his hand on Liv's back, and she looked up at him with watery eyes and a smile that was grateful for his support but still too guilty to fully accept the sentiment. "She'll have been asleep most of the time since we left, so even Blaine couldn't have caused too much trouble under the circumstances. Once she's home--even with the _worst_ case scenario--you'll be around to keep an eye on the situation. You've got an in with the boss, and it's not like there are any brains for you to eat on this case. Not sure if that's a positive or a negative, come to think of it. You know, maybe it would be a good idea to come up with an excuse for me to stay over so I can help... Take your side in arguments... Be the eyes in the back of your head... That sorta thing."

This time Liv Iaughed for real. "I love you even more for offering, but I'm not sure how we could spin that. The last Peyton remembers is before you even thought of creating a vaccine. Besides, and I hate to say it, I think Blaine was right. I was so scared after almost losing my best friend, but all my trying to protect her yesterday just made her more afraid... like it transferred _my_ fear to her." Liv flipped her hand in frustration and her eyebrows raised in an exaggerated expression of irritation at herself.

"Yeah, well, even the Devil has to get one right every once in a while," Ravi huffed. He gave her bottom a squeeze through the sheets, molding Liv against his warm body. Liv raised an eyebrow at him, and Ravi feigned innocence. "So short of me faking having had too much to drink and needing to sleep it off in your room, we could conceivably have to make this morning last for a few days."

Liv pretended to ignore his suggestion, but she wriggled against him in a way that drew a low "mmmm" from his throat. "Let's keep hoping that she's got her memory back when we get there. It's a good thing Peyton and I don't share clothes. If there's anything here you want to wear this weekend, don't forget to bring it with you," Liv told him.

"Understood," Ravi said. "And, Liv, if there's anything you need I'm here for you." Staring into Ravi's earnest face, Liv ran her fingers through his beard and bit at her lip with a mischievous smile tugging at the corners of her mouth. She gave his left nipple a sudden tweak that made him squeal loudly in surprise. He rolled them over, pinning a giggling Liv to the bed and tickling her with his beard in revenge, before dissolving into kissing her.

*************

Blaine stretched his back as he rose from the chair by Peyton's bedside. Even having taken turns about the room every so often during the long, quiet hours of the night to keep from getting stiff, everything still ached all over. He pressed his hands to the small of his back and leaned backwards before twisting side to side. A succession of crackles and pops ran down his spine, and he mentally chided himself for how good it felt.

He'd watched silently over her all night. Each time the nurses came to check her, she'd started awake with a jolt and a cry, overcome by the sudden shock of waking in a strange place followed by her mind flashing back to waking in a pile of dead bodies as she remembered how she'd come to be in the hospital, and Blaine had been terrified both for her and that this would be the time that she would remember the rest and tell him to leave and never return. Instead she'd looked at him with frightened eyes thankful to find him waiting at her side, and he'd instinctively reached for her hand. It became his silent way of reassuring her as she tried to calm down and fall back to sleep.

The sounds of movement from the bed drew Blaine's attention, and he turned to see Peyton wide awake and staring at him. He swallowed, afraid to move as he searched her eyes for any sign of distaste. "Every time I wake up, you have that look on your face," Peyton said in a thoughtful tone as she studied his expression. Her brows furrowed deeply.

"Like what?" he asked.

"Like I'm made of knives," Peyton answered.

"I guess, it just hurts to see you like this," Blaine replied. Peyton pressed her lips together, giving him a sad grimace of sympathy. His chest tightened with a painful ache to see her frightened and injured... to see her surrounded by machines in the surreal setting of the hospital room, but there was a whole other level he couldn't tell her about. He wondered if she would ever wonder about it when her memories returned.

His feet began taking one step after another towards her, and he took a seat alongside her on the edge of the mattress. Peyton practically glowed in the bright haze of morning light despite the visual reminders of the ordeal she'd suffered. "How you feeling? You look more like yourself this morning. Can't have gotten much rest with the constant wake-up calls."

"My head feels less woolly. Did you get _any_ sleep?"

"That would have gone against the point of standing guard. I look that good, huh?" Blaine asked with a waggle of his eyebrows. The dark circles under his eyes nearly rivalled Peyton's, and he swayed slightly, almost drunkenly, from exhaustion.

Peyton's fingers sought his flamboyant blond locks. "You look ready to drop, but every time I look at you I just keep thinking how wonderful it'll be to go home and curl up together. I've never seen anything more inviting in my life."

"Sounds perfect," Blaine replied. "You'll have to excuse me if I snore or drool on you, because I'm too tired to sleep pretty."

Peyton gave an undignified snort of laughter. "I'll be too busy drooling on you to care," she told him. As warm and bright as the morning sunlight, Blaine's laughter echoed off the hard surfaces of the floor and walls and filled the spartan hospital room, and Peyton joined him as the promise of home and comfort lifted both their moods.

"Sounds cozy in here," Liv announced, pushing open the wooden door. She tried to keep her expression neutral as she cast a worried eye on Blaine and Peyton's relaxed poses, sitting close on the bed with an easy intimacy. She felt Ravi press his hand against her back, and she unconsciously leaned into him.

"Good news! The nurse was just getting the paperwork together to discharge you as we passed the desk," Ravi chirped from over Liv's shoulder.

Peyton beamed. "Thank God! We were just talking about how much we want to get out of here and get some real sleep," she said. "Oh, and we need to make arrangements for someone to pick up your car later, because you are in no shape to drive, " she added turning to Blaine with an expression as immutable as stone.

Blaine nodded. "I'll try to make it to the couch before I collapse," he promised with a look of excessive vulnerability--his eyebrows lifted, eyes almost comically wide, lips pursed.

"You did not just say couch! Don't you dare toy with me like that. I was promised a one snoring, drooling pillow, and I intend to collect. We're going straight to my bed, and we're going to sleep for about the next two days," Peyton demanded. She placed her hands on her hips, and Blaine sucked in a breath.

"If you can get some real sleep that helps with the healing. When they tell you they're going to have you on bed rest for the next few days they actually mean rest," Liv warned. "They'll give us a handout for your aftercare, but I'd be pushing for you to avoid physical and mental exertion or any situation that could exacerbate your injuries. I know you're not going to want to hear this, but I think it would be a good idea for you to have the bed to yourself. No chance of Blaine accidentally clipping you in the head with an elbow or bumping heads. No disturbances. No fighting over blankets or sleeping space."

Peyton sighed. "Liv, sweetie, I already have an insane mother who is going to mollycoddle me to death once she finds out. That's the reason, you're my medical proxy instead of my family. Please, please don't go down that road."

Liv crossed her arms and tilted her weight onto one hip. "I know how it sounds. It's just that good mental and physical rest in the first few days can cut recovery time by more than half."

"An average of patients being symptom free in 43 days versus 100," Ravi broke in, and all eyes turned on him. He shrank under Peyton's impatient glare like a flower wilting under a too hot sun. Liv smiled in gratitude though, and Blaine pinched his features together thoughtfully as though impressed.

"Meanwhile your chance for reinjury and the potential for serious complications are still at their highest. A second bump now could slow recovery, worsen your symptoms, or worse. I'll relax more as you heal," Liv finished.

Peyton huffed, and she squeezed Blaine's hand tightly. She took a deep breath, "I get that you're trying to help," she began, and Blaine could already finish the sentence in his head. It inevitably ended with Peyton's firm rejection of Liv's suggestion and Blaine placed deeper into an increasingly difficult and emotionally dangerous situation--despite the fact that a large part of him would joyfully walk right into that danger to be close to Peyton.

"How 'bout a compromise?" Blaine suggested in a quick breath. Peyton and Liv both glared at him with differing degrees of resentment at the thought he was about to deny them something they wanted and had been promised. "We can sack out for a nap together in the living room today. If there's any signs of nightmares or somebody gets too restless, Liv is on hand to step in. I'll take the couch at bedtime. If you need me for anything, you only have to call out, and I'll come running."

Peyton glowered, and he was certain that she was about to tell him and everyone else in the room exactly where to go. He blinked and leaned in close. Brushing a piece of stray hair away from her ear, he whispered to her, "I know it's not ideal, but Liv was really scared for you yesterday. She loves you, Peyton. She even puts up with me for your sake. It'll make your best friend in the world feel better, and if it has a chance of helping you heal that much faster I'm willing to take the hit." He could hear Liv and Ravi shifting nervously behind him, could catch glimpses of them in his peripheral vision as they waited at the foot of the bed.

Peyton gave a reluctant nod as he pulled away to look at her. Her palm came up to cup his cheek, and she brushed her lips against his as her friends stiffened behind them. Peyton kissed him with noticably more hunger than she had last night, and in his already dizzy and sleep deprived state he felt like the top of his head was spinning and about to come off. Her lips moved against his with a giddy, thrumming insistence, coaxing him to open to her. When he did the tip of her tongue pressed into his mouth and caressed his tongue until the tingles from her touch ran through his entire body like a current of liquid ecstasy beneath his skin. He trembled slightly as she sat back to examine her handiwork.

"That was a wicked thing to do when a man's too tired to defend himself," he teased, swaying and grasping the lowered bedrail for balance.

"Oh my God! I didn't even think about it. You look like someone could pick you up with a mop!" She and Blaine erupted into more sleep drunk giggles as Liv and Ravi looked on in confusion. The two medical examiners relaxed when Peyton agreed to the compromise, though Liv still gave Blaine a questioning stare as she tried to puzzle out what he'd told Peyton to change Peyton's mind. The mood of the group continued to improve as the nurse arrived, and after signing the discharge papers Peyton happily changed into the sweat shirt and yoga pants Liv had brought for her. Blaine texted Don with a list of needs and instructions about his car, deciding it was preferable to leaving his R8 V10 in the parking garage for another night. Then Ravi drove the lot of them to Liv and Peyton's before heading off to work almost an hour late.

Kicking off his shoes inside the doorway, Blaine grabbed the spare blankets out of the linen cabinet and began building a nest for them on the floor using the couch cushions as a makeshift mattress, while Peyton grabbed pillows off her bed for them. Liv muttered something that sounded like: "At least it's not a sex fort," before rummaging through the refrigerator and asking if either of them wanted anything to eat before bedding down for their nap. Blaine declined. He was more tired than hungry, but he realized he was going to have to feed sooner or later without Peyton knowing. He decided he'd worry about that after he slept.

He climbed into their improvised bed still fully dressed and pressed his face into the pillow with the gleefulness of a hedonist discovering a new and unimagined pleasure. He breathed out with a soft hum of bliss as the pillows next to him shifted and the warmth of Peyton's body pressed against his, her arms locking around him and holding him in place as she found a comfortable position to rest her head upon his chest. Blaine was out before his mind could even finish registering how nice it felt to have Peyton back in his arms.

He woke to the sounds of laughter and the smell of coffee brewing in the kitchen. "That's when the tire blew, and we were stuck by the side of the road in the middle of the French countryside. The rental car had no jack. We had no cellphones. Hours passed out in the hot sun. Finally other cars and people started to come along, and they started parking alongside us. But when we tried to ask them for assistance they told us that we'd have to wait because a bicycle race was coming through."

"Yes! They'd brought tons of beer and all kinds of incredible food, and they were having a party waiting for the race to arrive! I remember thinking one of the guys I was drinking with... umm, Phillipe... was really hot... until he decided to drunkenly streak alongside the peloton riders," Peyton cackled. "We finally got out of there with another group of college girls who gave us a lift into town." Returning from the memory of her collge trip with Liv, she noticed Blaine sitting up on his elbows. "Oh! Look who's awake," Peyton greeted him, "Ready for a little coffee and some breakfast?"

Blaine mussed his hair as he sat the rest of the way up and braced his elbow against his raised knee. He rested his head in his palm. "Coffee good," he yawned in theatrical zombie monotone. He felt for his phone with his other hand.

"We slept for almost four hours, before I woke up ready to eat a horse. Needed to take a little something for my head again too," Peyton informed him, as she pulled off the tip of a croissant and popped it into her mouth. "Liv said that one of your employees brought us croissants and fresh fruit while dropping off some clothes and your car." Blaine noticed the tray of flaky pastries sitting on the island next to a large bowl of strawberries, melon, and fresh pineapple. He spied a small clear container filled with a mixed berry and brain topping that Liv was using to butter the bottom of a croissant. He felt a stab of hunger at the sight, and his stomach growled loud enough for everyone to hear. Peyton motioned to the the tray again.

"Apparently everything you requested is in your overnight bag," Liv told him, pointing towards the wheeled black carry on standing just inside the door of the apartment. Blaine locked onto the sight of the bag like a hunting dog coming to attention.

"I think I'll freshen up and change into something more comfortable before joining you," Blaine announced. He strode towards the door and grasped the black travel bag by the handle, wheeling it behind him towards the bathroom. His long steps crossed the space with eager speed.

"Maybe you should keep more stuff here," Peyton suggested. Blaine forced himself to smile, as he pushed away more thoughts of what could have been.

The moment he was locked safely away behind the door, Blaine yanked open the zipper and began tearing through the bag's contents. "C'mon Donald, show me the brains," he whispered to himself as he pulled out a pair of shirts and a suit jacket which he uncharacteristically let fall to the floor until at last his fingers touched the unmistakable squishy plastic of a bundle of Filmore-Graves brain tubes. Sliding one out from the rubber band that bound them, he ripped into it and began to suck on the open end before squeezing more into his mouth and quickly gulping that down as well. He hadn't had anything to eat in 24 hours, and he was suddenly ravenous. He latched onto the open tube squeezing and sucking the contents down so quickly he was left panting and slouched against the doors of the bathroom counter when he finished.

He folded up the empty tube and wrapped it in a wad of tissue before tossing it into the wastebasket. After taking a leak he brushed his teeth before hopping under the overhead spray and taking a fast shower. Then he used the blow dryer and a generous bit of pommade on his hair before swanning out in a pair of cotton sleep pants and a tight v-neck tee that he knew Peyton liked on him.

He found her sitting at the kitchen island drinking a mug of coffee with Liv. Peyton's eyes sparkled like pale peridots as she looked up and smiled at him over the rim of her mug. As she took another sip, she motioned to the coffee maker and the mug she'd left for him next to a pot of freshly brewed java. He poured himself a cup of the divine smelling blend, and he took a sip without so much as bothering to blow on the steaming liquid pooled like black gold in his mug. He made a sound of appreciation, and he headed towards the tray of croissants so he could make a show of eating in front of Peyton.

He kissed Peyton good morning, despite it being after noon, and he took a seat on the tall stool beside her while their strict chaperone watched his every move from the other side of the counter. He was grateful that Liv's obvious attempts to stop Peyton from kissing him from last night seemed to have ceased at least. "I take it from the lack of being awakened by a boot to the ribs that there wasn't an excess of disorderly conduct while we slept," he cajoled as he took a big bite of the croissant. He took a carefree sip of coffee while he waited for any forthcoming responses. Liv simply rolled her eyes and pretended to be engrossed in drinking her coffee.

"Apparently not. You were so out of it, you barely moved. Open up," Peyton said, grabbing a strawberry and pinching the little cap of green petals between her fingers as she held it poised before his lips.

Blaine gave the proffered fruit a questioning stare. "Shouldn't I be the one babying you?" Blaine asked, but he dutifully complied, parting his lips for her and meeting her eyes. When Peyton brought the berry to his tongue, Blaine caught it between his teeth and took a bite. He chewed with a dopey, contented grin while Peyton ate the remaining bite of the strawberry, her eyes still locked with his. She grinned at him like the proverbial cat who'd eaten the canary. It sent a shiver down Blaine's spine.

"By all means, feel free to reciprocate," Peyton told him.

"Every time you wake up you seem a little better," Blaine mused. "So what's on our agenda for the rest of today? A fine mix of more eating, sleeping, and lounging around?" he asked, picking up a large strawberry by the sepals and holding it out for her. She leaned towards him, placing her hand on his knee and squeezing with a gentle but firm pressure. He swallowed as her hand slid up his thigh.

Liv turned as red as a strawberry herself as Peyton ran her tongue over the berry between Blaine's fingers, curling it suggestively around it and flicking the tip of her tongue against the blunted point of the fruit. Blaine nearly fell off his seat, as his brain came crashing to a sudden stop and his lungs temporarily forgot how to function. If Peyton had done that when they were alone together, he'd probably have simply kissed her senseless without a second thought. Peyton making such a display in front of other people was just the most shockingly unPeyton thing to do that he wasn't sure how to react though. "Ahem! Communal spaces," Liv reminded her.

Peyton's eyes narrowed with a sharp shift in mood as she rounded on Liv. "For Christ's sake, Liv! What the hell is your problem?! You can be such a prude! Could you stop being up in my business for two seconds?" Peyton snarled. Searing anger flared behind her eyes, and she gave her best friend a glare that looked ready to throw down. Liv's eyes widened and her jaw dropped, but the flame of Peyton's anger had extinguished itself almost as soon as it had surfaced only to be replaced by a near panic as she recognized just how volatile her mood had become, shifting like a candle flame spurred by the slightest movement of air.

"Oh God! What is wrong with me?" Peyton gasped. She covered her mouth with both hands as if she could pull back the angry words that she'd already said. She stood and looked between Liv and Blaine, as though she were horrified by how she must appear through their eyes. "I'm so sorry, Liv. I didn't mean that." Peyton stared over her shoulder, ready to bolt.

Blaine set the strawberry he'd still been holding on the counter and got to his feet. "We know you didn't. You've been through the wringer... physically and emotionally. You're human. You're allowed to get frustrated, to snap, to vent," he said. "No judgement."

Liv also had come to her senses and was trying to find a way to diffuse the raging emotions that Peyton was being buffeted by. "It's okay, Sweetie. We know your emotions are running high right now. Impulse control, moodiness, and anxiety are all symptoms of Post Concussion Syndrome. Like the headaches," Liv assured her. "Pain, stress, and being tired can all feed into the situation. Lots of folks find find this the most challenging change after a head injury."

"Change? Is this something that is going to get better or are you telling me that I have some kind of permanent brain damage?" Peyton asked, a hysterical edge creeping into her voice.

It was Blaine's turn to glare at Liv as he placed a reassuring hand against Peyton's arm, and Peyton pulled him close. "Your brain has to make some adjustments while you're healing," he said. He petted her hair, as his other arm tightened around her waist. "The mood swings can heal, and they can be treated. You might also have PTSD. It could take a bit of time to sort out what's going on. I... uh... did a lot of online searches while sitting up last night." He'd also seen his running buddies get their fair share of injuries. In particular, he remembered an incident between Julian and some wannabe street thug with a bat that had left Blaine's one-time muscle with months of temper snaps that made Peyton's little outburst look like nothing. He'd experienced the PTSD himself after nearly dying a few months ago--jumping at every sound, carrying a gun for protection at all times, and sometimes being completely overwhelmed by the anger that had lead him to exact his revenge upon his father. As Peyton held him tight and wept against his shoulder, he pictured putting a bullet right between his father's eyes for hurting her. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Just wanted to say thank you to Ash and Phoebe for their kind words and encouragement.


	3. Revelations

Ravi stood in the arched doorway to the morgue and silently surveyed the gurneys covered with black body bags that filled the exam space like a field of strange cocoons, only nothing beautiful was transforming inside, poised to emerge from these chrysalises of the dead. _Maybe I should think of them as fruit_ , Ravi thought to himself, overcome for a moment by the creepiness of his previous mental comparison. _Ugly, black fruit filled with bodies to examine, organs to catalog, and findings to document._ He decided he didn't like the thought of meat fruit any better than he did pupae. Ravi had no fear of the dead. They were a wealth of information able to speak to him about their final moments, so he could help catch their killers. The sight of so many filling the room at once, however, was bleak even for someone with Ravi's well-honed, gallows humor--a situation made even worse by the prospect of handling the onslaught without Liv beside him to help lighten the mood.

He exhaled loudly as he went down the steps into the the morgue proper, and he headed towards his office. He grabbed his pristine white labcoat from its hook and slipped it on over his lavender sweater. The night shift had made some progress already, but there were still ten more bodies than there were drawers to accommodate them. Ravi picked up the clipboard lying across the first body bag in his path. "Newton Lewton," he breathed in awe. "Your parents really must not have liked you, my friend."

"Am I interrupting?" a deep, gruff voice came from the doorway. Clive Babbineaux stood in the doorway wearing an easy grin. His hands in the pockets of his black leather jacket, he spread his arms from the elbow, and his jacket opened giving the faint impression of wings.

"Only the ramblings of a lonely man," Ravi answered, his voice brimming with drama. He sighed to illustrate how forlorn he was.

"So I see. Where's Liv? It looks like you've got a full house." Clive clapped one hand against the side of the other and snapped his fingers with a dramatic flourish as he gave the morgue a cursory once over.

Ravi hung the clipboard off the side of the exam table. "Gimme a hand moving this guy onto the table," he said, and Clive gave a grim nod as he grabbed the feet of the corpse through the bag and helped Ravi heave it onto the metal table with a grunt. "Peyton was one of the survivors of the City Hall Massacre. She's got a concussion and no memory of the last six months. I gave Liv some time off to take care of her for a few days."

"Let's hope she's on her feet sooner rather than later. This is turning into a political hot potato for Mayor Baracus and Filmore-Graves. Questions are being raised all over the city about the current brain shortage and how safe any humans are from starving zombies if we can't even protect our own city hall. If it goes badly for him Peyton's the next in line for acting mayor," Clive noted.

"So no pressure then. I'll pass the news along to Liv. Far be it from me to doubt the allure of my company, but you have that 'important business' look about you. Is there something specific you wanted me to be on the lookout for that you're here to tell me about?" Ravi asked, leaning against the table and fixing Clive with a knowing look.

Clive planted his hands on his hips and looked down. "Yeah, I'm guessing you haven't had a chance to look over the reports from the night shift yet," Clive replied. "They found a flash memory card inside the mouth of one of the bodies. I'm here to pick it up.  Apparently, it had a video message on it."

*************************

"I always get so nervous when Grace Kelley goes into the killer's apartment," Peyton admitted. She snuggled against Blaine's chest, throwing her leg over his, as he hummed in agreement.

"Yeah. For the record you never need to prove anything to me by sneaking into a murderer's home to search for clues. I freely concede that you are more than capable of facing down danger in the pursuit of justice." He ran his fingers through her long hair in lazy strokes, letting the smooth strands fall between his fingers and occassionally twirling a lock of her loose waves around his index finger.

"Oh? So I'm _capable_ of it, but you wouldn't want me to _do_ it?" she inquired. Her voice sounded playful in its challenge. Blaine recognized it as a trap.

"Just not without me as backup," he answered. "You go. I go. Deal?"

"Does this work both ways? You aren't allowed to go into danger without me as backup either?" Peyton asked, resting her chin on one forearm across his chest and holding her other hand menacingly over his tummy with her fingers slightly curled as though prepared to tickle him.

"Awww. You're worried about me! Do I have a history of risking my life in the pursuit of justice that I should know about? Because from what I've heard I wasn't that kinda guy before," Blaine said. He furrowed his brows and pursed his lips as he lowered his face towards hers.

"If you evade the question again, I _will_ treat you as a hostile witness," Peyton warned him in a low rumble, flexing her fingers with intent.

Blaine eyed her fingers like a gun aimed straight towards his undefended belly, and he gulped holding his hands up as though she had him hostage. "Okay. If I'm suddenly overcome with the urge to throw myself into danger in the pursuit of justice, I won't go without you as backup."

"Blaine," she warned in a low voice. "You're the one who brought up the facing things together as a team. You know, Jimmy Stewart could have saved himself two broken legs..." Peyton's voice took on an expectant edge. Then she suddenly realized how much like a threat that last comment sounded, and she groaned.

Blaine laughed as he registered her sudden change in expression. "That one sounded different in your head, didn't it?"

"Yeah," Peyton replied, the corners of her lips pulling taut in a grimace. "It was all the way out there before I heard myself." She gave a quiet laugh as he squeezed her hand. She rolled her head back against his shoulder and her eyes focused in on Grace Kelley being questioned in the apartment by a police officer and flashing a relieved Jimmy Stewart a glimpse of the evidence she had smuggled out. "You seem strangely thrilled at the prospect of being threatened by me," Peyton told him, giving him a pinch on the side.

"Nobody's ever threatened to break my legs to stop me from risking my neck before. I'm touched," he cooed, placing one hand over his heart. Peyton stared up at him with her lips pressed together and her brow arched. "You win," he said softly, kissing her on the temple. "I wouldn't do anything dangerous without you to have my back." She beamed up at him and batted her eyelashes before rewarding him with a lingering caress of her lips against his that left him tingling in all the right ways.

Quick as a striking snake Peyton snatched the bowl of popcorn from the other side of Blaine. Dipping her hand into the bowl she came away with only air. "We need more snacks," Peyton observed with a mournful sigh.

"Want some Hellfire Fries this time?" Blaine asked as he pressed pause, and Peyton nodded. He got up bringing the bowl with him to the kitchen, where Liv sat at the counter reading something on her phone. Peeking over her shoulder, he could see it was a news story about the massacre. He rinsed the bowl out in the sink, gave it a quick drying off with the kitchen towel, and tucked it back into the cabinet before grabbing the bag of Hellfire Fries. "Anything to drink? Water, juice, seltzer?" he asked Peyton.

Liv's phone rang, and she jumped in surprise. Seeing Ravi's name on the screen she smiled and swiped to answer. "Hey! Everything okay down there without me?" she asked by way of greeting.

"Seltzer," Peyton mouthed to Blaine, so as not to disturb Liv's call, and he nodded. Looking toward's her roommate, Peyton noticed that Liv's smile had vanished. Liv was biting her lower lip and trying to keep her head turned slightly away from Peyton and Blaine.

"Nice of him to pass it along," she huffed with a roll of her eyes. Peyton and Blaine both paused to listen, hanging on Liv's end of the conversation. "I was just reading about that. Do you need me to...? No, not yet. I'd say that's questionable at best. He what?! Oh, God... Yeah, I will. Call if you need me. Seriously. Yeah... me too." The wistful tone of those last words made Blaine, who was now armed with snacks and drinks, smirk as he headed back to Peyton.

"Any news?" Peyton asked as soon as Liv hung up. Peyton sat straight and alert, her mind primed and raring to go.

"There are more bodies than drawers down there, and Ravi might be living in his office for the next week to get through all the paperwork. No news on Brother Love yet," Liv announced matter of factly. "Um... I'm going to go video chat with Ravi in the other room for a few minutes.... and Clive's going to stop by later with a few questions about your father, Blaine."

"Can't wait," Blaine replied with a blank expression that clearly said he'd rather be having a colonoscopy. Peyton squeezed his leg and shot him a half smile.

She shot Liv a look. "You can video conference in here... or is there something you don't want me to hear?"

"He wants to consult with me about autopsies and zombie stuff, Peyton. So honestly there could be a lot that I don't want you to hear," Liv told her. "Look, I know you're dying for info, and I'll tell you when there's news. You don't really want to hear or see us discussing how your friends and coworkers died, Sweetie."

Peyton swallowed and bowed her head, looking noticably pale. Blaine rubbed the area between Peyton's shoulder blades to comfort her, patting gently with his fingers after a few moments. "You're right. I don't," she said.

"You okay?" Liv asked.

"Yeah," Peyton replied, pushing Blaine's hand away. She rose to her feet and headed towards the bathroom with a determined step. "Need to pee before we finish the movie," she called back at them. Her voice sounded strained despite her casual tone. The others took the hint that she needed a little space and let her go without comment.

"How bad _are_ things down at the morgue?" Blaine asked Liv in a quiet voice once Peyton was out of the room.

"Pretty grim. Ravi's going to tell me more on the video call. Clive'll fill you in when he gets here. Apparently they found something in the bodies. I need to find out what the hell is going on," she said. She crossed her arms over her chest and hurried down the hall to her room. Her light and hurried step seemed as though she were hoping to disappear from Peyton's consciousness for the time being, and Blaine felt a moment of sympathy.

Blaine caught himself staring at the bathroom door and wondering how long was a normal amount of time to give her and what constituted the proper time when one should check on a woman who had locked herself in the bathroom. If it passed a certain threshold would it be a sign that Peyton wanted him to stop pretending that she wasn't probably crying in there? The door opened while he was still debating if he needed to go knock.

Peyton strolled out of the bathroom talking about the movie. She clearly wanted him to ignore the fact that her eyes were red-rimmed and even puffier from crying. The effect set off the bruises on her face, making them seem even worse with more to draw the eye to them. "I was thinking maybe we could have Liv call Detective Babbineaux and ask him to bring take away. Sounds better than gnoshing on more junk food," Blaine told her. He waved the unopened bag of Hellfire Fries at her. "Unless you're really hungry now..."

"Honestly? It's frustration eating," Peyton sighed.

"Yeah... I'd guessed as much," he responded. He lowered his arm and let the bag hang by his side as he padded back into the kitchen to put away the extra snacks. "You're not happy on the sidelines. So do you want me to up my distraction game, or do you need to lean into how you're feeling for a bit?"

"I don't know. Everything I'm feeling is just so ugly right now that it scares me," she admitted.

Blaine's lips became a thin line. He leaned against the counter, the heels of his hands pressed against the edge of the countertop.

****************************

Clive Babineaux looked like he'd been sucking on a pickle, as he unpacked the paper bag of Thai takeaway.

"Yes! Their coconut shrimp is to die for!" Peyton exclaimed. "You are the man!"

Clive's expression softened into a weak smile at the praise. "Glad to see you doing so well. We'll try to keep things down at the station under control for you until you're back to work. We won't rest until we've got him."

"Thank you, Clive," Peyton told him sincerely. "After all this time you've worked with Liv we should really hang out more."

"We'll have to get some steak. I can explain Dark Side of the Moon to you and Liv," he offered with a good natured chuckle. Liv cringed recognizing the repeat offer, but Blaine quirked a brow at the surprising common interest. Peyton just smiled and agreed. Clive winced inwardly. Peyton obviously had no clue that she had previously taken Clive for steak and that exact discussion so that Liv could have some private time in the apartment. 

"Didn't peg you for a music fan, Detective, " Blaine interjected. He passed a paper box of rice to Peyton.

"Oh! You should come to one of Blaine's performances!" Peyton suggested with a sudden excitement. Blaine and Clive both cringed.

"We'll have to set that up," Clive agreed with a tight smile. "Liv, could you plate me up some of that shrimp while I ask Blaine a couple of quick questions?"

"As Blaine's lawyer, maybe I should..."

"He's not a suspect, and as you are a victim in the case I can think of plenty of legal and medical reasons not to. It'll be short," Clive replied. He gestured to the hallway that lead to Liv's room, and Blaine lead the way. Clive closed the door behind them.

Blaine took a seat in the only chair along the wall, leaving Clive to either stand or sit on the bed. Clive chose to stand. "So when was the last time you saw your Father?" he asked as he fished out his notebook.

"Monday," Blaine answered without hesitation. It felt weird making the effort to be cooperative, but he wanted this to be over fast.

"That was unusually quick and straight forward from you," Clive replied in a slow and suspicious tone. His dark eyes devoured every nuance of Blaine's demeanor. "How are you so sure it was Monday?"

"So this feels weird to you too, right? It's not just me?" Blaine answered, and Clive's growl and rolled eyes reassured him. "I'm so sure because my dad has been blackmailing me into providing him and his followers with a free lunch every Monday. I have the distinct displeasure of being forced to attend under the guise of family dinner." Blaine jiggled his leg nervously, while he waited for Clive's next question waiting till Clive got to the big question.

"Never got the impression that you were an easy man to blackmail. How did your father manage that? Family loyalty?"

"Numbers. He staged a sit in with his flock and refused to leave my dining room until I complied." Blaine could clearly see the question on the horizon now.

"And how would you describe your relationship with your father? You once said you weren't close. Is this typical behavior?" Clive asked, his eyes narrowing.

"My old man is an abusive slime bag who beat and humiliated me my whole life, drove my mom to suicide, and sent my grandad to an institution to steal his company."

Clive's mouth tightened, and he pressed his pen into the paper harder than necessary. His eyes seemed doggedly locked upon the notebook, while he wrote copious notes about that response. Blaine wondered if he'd hit a trigger with one of those descriptions. Hell, maybe all of the above.

"So no love lost? How about Miss Charles? Did she have any run-ins with your father prior to this? Maybe something she doesn't remember?" Clive asked, looking back up at Blaine.

Blaine shook his head. "As far as I know Peyton only met my dad once. He popped back up after Major had kidnapped him and had his lawyer set a meeting to get me to sign the inheritance back over to him... and to blame and humiliate me."

"And Peyton attended this meeting?"

"I asked her to represent me for legal advice. When Dad decided to tell a vicious story from my childhood, she told him to leave." Blaine crossed his arms over his chest and shrugged.

"Did your father get particularly irate when she asked him to leave?" Clive's eyes were enough to tell Blaine that he was definitely interested in this.

"She didn't ask. Her exact words were: "Get out." He told her that he had what was worth having and left," Blaine explained. "He seemed more interested in getting one last dig at me than in getting angry at her. Not sure how much it would have made an impression. He hasn't exactly been himself for a while now."

Clive straightened. "And why's that?"

Blaine stared up at him with rounded eyes--prepared to play dumb. The memory of Liv telling him about the attack floated to the surface of his mind, and the thought of accidentally stalling or derailing the investigation made him flinch. With a heavy sigh he gave a highly abridged account of Angus's incarceration in the well before D-day. "Since he escaped the well, he seems to really believe he's been hearing the voice of God. He's caught up in his little religion... acting like he wants to make amends for the past. I was almost ready to believe that part," Blaine concluded lost in his thoughts.

"I should have known this was all somehow your fault," Clive seethed. His arms dropped to his sides, before he ran one hand across the top of his head, careful not to accidentally mark his scalp with the pen he was still holding. He turned in a frustrated circle, and he closed his eyes, driving his head sharply forward for a moment with a loud exhale before composing himself again.

"Yeah, I'm sure if I'd reported that my zombie father had tried to kill me, you'd have gotten right on with locking him in jail... oh wait! Pre D-day! Maybe if you'd caught Major sooner instead of trying to pin the Chaos Killer mantle on me, Dad wouldn't have thought I'd tried to off him and gone on a grudge spree. I suppose if I'd just killed him instead of trying to lock him away where he couldn't hurt anyone you'd have been happier?" Blaine's sneer could cut marble. "We could play the blame game all night, but it doesn't get us any closer to stopping Angus," Blaine argued. "Liv said you had information to fill me in on," he said hoping to change the subject.

"Yeah," Clive admitted. He shifted from one foot to the other his eyes averted. "One of the bodies was Peyton's personal assisstant, Janet Hoberman. During her autopsy they found a plastic bag containing a micro sd card inside her mouth. There was a video on it. It started with a message to the city of Seattle. Afterwards it showed your father attacking Peyton, and he was ranting his own brand of religious spiel. I was hoping you might be able to make sense of it. I think I have a pretty good idea now, and you're not going to like it."

Blaine looked up, his heart in his throat and sporting an expression as if he'd just been slapped. He opened his mouth a few times as if to speak, but nothing came out. He closed his eyes and swallowed before he finally managed to croak out, "What did the old bastard say?"

"Brace yourself," Clive warned as he flipped back several pages in his narrow notebook. He cleared his throat before reading aloud, "The quality of mercy is not for the unworthy, but it flows freely from on high like a rain of brains that proceeds from heaven. For God loved his only son enough to raise him from the grave rather than let him rot in the tomb of human flesh! Is not that the first tale of the divine zombie? This flesh too will putrify in the mortal grave, only the holy brain fit to feed his glorious undead. But behold my gift. The choice is upon you, my son."

"That frogging lunatic," Blaine snarled, out of his chair before Clive had even finished. His eyes darted around the room, and he realized he was searching for something to break.

Clive flipped his notebook closed and crossed one arm across his abdomen to catch the elbow of the other which was raised to cradle his cheek between his partially closed fist and his forefinger. "You said your father has been trying to make amends. In his mind this is really a gift. He left Peyton alive as a present to you..." It wasn't really a question, but he still seemed to want Blaine to confirm his conclusion.

"Yeah... On the condition I make her a zombie." Blaine placed his hands on his hips, and he raised his eyes towards the door. The muscle in his jaw twitched, and his lower lip pushed outward. He still wanted to break something, but he settled for tightening one hand into a fist until his nails threatened to push through his own skin. He focused on the pain, finding it strangely calming. "Filmore Graves must have already routed the Triple Cross Church. No sign of him?"

"He and his people had cleared out," Clive confirmed. "Do you think there's any chance he could try to make contact or show up for that weekly family dinner?"

"I doubt it," Blaine replied, "but you could stop by around lunchtime with the SWAT team at the ready just in case. He's clearly going to be keeping tabs on me and Peyton somehow."

Clive nodded slowly. "So how is Peyton holding up?"

Blaine finally tore his eyes away from the door and looked back at Clive. He blinked as though returning to the present from a far distant thought. "She's got a lot to deal with at the moment, but she's determined to get through it. She'd rest a lot better with Pops out of the picture though--one way or the other."

Clive's head jerked to his left slightly, his brows raised and his lips pursed. "You're not planning to do something about that yourself, are you?" he asked.

Blaine shrugged. "I'm otherwise engaged at present, but I suggest you tell Liv not to hold back if he shows up on the doorstep. He clearly won't be. Do we need to move Peyton somewhere he can't find her?"

"We'll try to keep it from coming to that. For now it might be safest if we try to let him think you've turned Peyton. You staying in the apartment could give him that impression. We'll be watching too," Clive said. Blaine wasn't sure if that last part was meant to have extra meaning, or if it was his own suspicion of police coloring in the words. _Probably that first one_ , he thought catching Clive's tight-lipped glare.

Clive announed they were done, as he opened the door and lead Blaine back down the hall to the living room where Liv and Peyton were already eating on the couch. The cushions had been placed back and the blanket folded and placed at one end. "Hope you saved some coconut shrimp," Blaine said, using a disarming smile to deflect attention away from how tense he really felt.

"I was starting to wonder if you'd gotten lost," Peyton told them. She took another bite of shrimp, pausing for a moment with the chopsticks still held between her lips while she studied the pair of them.

The words, "I'm a lawyer, Blaine. I shouldn't be trusted," echoed in Blaine's memory, and he found himself wishing Clive had brought anything else to eat. He'd learned the hard way not to trust the particular expression Peyton was wearing. If this wasn't kicking up Peyton's memory, it was certainly doing a number on his. "I see the District Attorney is in," Blaine replied. "I'd pretend we were talking about music, but really I was grilling Detective Babineaux for information about the investigation. Well, after telling him all about the incident with Dad's will."

Peyton's neck straightened, and she put her chopsticks down. "And did you find out anything good?" she asked. Blaine had been expecting that response.

"Filmore Graves raided the place where my dad and his followers had been holed up, but they'd cleared out. There are still men outside watching the apartment just to be safe, and I agreed to let Detective Babineaux stake out my business on Monday--just in case Pops stops by for a visit... or looking for an easy meal." The last part brought both Peyton and Liv up short. Blaine took the opportunity to seat himself on one end of the couch beside Peyton, and Clive took a seat on the side chair near Liv.

"You two aren't planning to do anything dangerous, are you?" Peyton queried as she passed Blaine the container of rice. She leaned back into the cusions with her arm draped along the back of the couch as Blaine dished out dollops of food onto his plate. If it had been just the two of them they would have just eaten directly from the containers, but with Clive and Liv on hand such intimacies were off the table.

"I would hope that if Dad showed up in my office having Detective Babbineaux on hand would make things safer instead," Blaine told her. "This coconut shrimp is scrumptious!" he announced. He caught a shrimp between his chopsticks and bit into it with more force than was necessary, chewing with great enthusiasum. Capturing another he offered it out to Peyton. She took it demurely, and he could see her mind churning as she ate.

"What time is my appointment on Monday, Liv?" Peyton asked, but when she realized Liv was trying to chew a mouthful of food in order to answer, she waved Liv off.

"I can adjust my schedule to go with you if you need the extra moral support," Blaine offered.

"We'll see how I feel Monday. If I'm still not 100% I might take you up on that, but I'm still hoping that she'll clear me for work. Maybe, I can stop by and visit you at Shady Plots, afterwards."

"Or I could take you out to celebrate if it's good news," Blaine said. He tried to imagine Peyton's reaction to pulling up to his business, expecting to find a funeral home and instead finding a gourmet restaurant. He mentally shook himself. _By then she'll know the truth_ , he thought. _We won't be going anywhere to celebrate, and she's not going to want to visit me._ Suddenly, the food tasted bitter on his tongue.

He settled into the amicable chit-chat with the others, pretending with Clive and Liv to set up an evening for Clive to come hear him play piano. It stung to realize just how much he missed playing and singing while Peyton smiled on from the bar. Without her in his life music had lost its appeal, but for the first time in months Blaine was feeling the urge to sing again. Blaine and Clive did engage in a musical debate over the lasting impact of musical movements from the 70s and 80s. Peyton laughed, watching them alternately disagree and find common ground. Liv poured herself a drink and vehemently disagreed with both of them about New Wave, causing Blaine to call her a heathen while Clive pointed at Blaine in agreement.

The evening stretched on later than intended, until eventually Peyton started to yawn and drowse against Blaine's shoulder. Clive looked at his watch and goggled in disbelief. "I should be heading home before Dale sends my picture to missing persons," he announced. "Sides, looks like you could use the rest, and I don't want to keep you up."

After saying her goodbyes and thanking Clive for bringing dinner, Peyton hugged Liv goodnight and excused herself to her room to get ready for bed. Clive and Blaine shared a nod before Liv walked Clive to the door. Then Blaine busied himself making up the couch for the night, not that there was much to do.

Getting ready for bed, Peyton pulled out a soft black elastic and stretched it around her fingers while she combed and gathered her tumbling mane with the fingers of her other hand. She flinched each time her fingers swept near the goose egg nestled along her hairline in the center of her forehead, afraid of touching the painful lump as she imagined the slightest touch somehow setting off an uncontrollable hemorrhage or some other serious condition that the doctors had all missed. She sighed at her own morbid fears, as she pulled her hair through the ponytail holder.

A quick loop of elastic was followed by another twisting loop to bind it, but on the third loop she left her hair caught midway through the elastic band in a simple bun. Then she gathered the loose tail of hair left over and wound it around the base of the bun, tucking in the ends and securing it all with a few pins. Throughout the process she kept her eyes diverted from the mirror to avoid glancing at her own reflection. The first time she had caught her reflection in the bathroom she'd begun to cry--not even sure which of the overwhelming emotions sweeping through her was the one wringing the tears from her eyes. She clenched her fingers into a steel fist as she finally forced her eyes towards the glass.

The blackish purple crescents, sharp and cruel as scimitars, beneath her eyes shocked her just as badly as the last time she'd dared peek. They'd grown and were wrapping further around her eyes. The surrounding skin was puffier than last time she'd looked too, and the lump on her forehead seemed to have grown to cover most of her forehead now. She felt tears welling up again. It wasn't physical vanity prompting her. _I look like a punching bag_ , she thought, touching the bloated bruises with a ginger fingertip. _I look like a victim._ That was the thought that twisted her insides, gutting her until her pride spilled out onto the floor another casuality of the attack.

She fought to stifle a sob, and her ribs ached as her chest heaved silently. She gulped air painfully into her constricted lungs with a quiet hiccuping sound, and she rubbed her sternum with the heel of her hand trying to calm the spasms as she retreated to the edge of her bed and sat in a slouched pile. Part of her longed for the arms of her friends to comfort her while they told her all the platitudes she needed to hear, and part of her wanted the freedom of being able to cry alone unfettered by the fear of how those around her would react. Yet here she sat getting neither catharsis as she tried to cry as quietly as possible so that neither Blaine nor Liv would come in to see her like this--a damaged burden they'd already spent all day coddling.

Afraid that someone might come to her door to check on her before going to bed, she forced herself to take deep, calming breaths. As her crying came under control, she wiped at her cheeks with the backs of her fingers. She kept her fingers away from her eyes though, unnerved at the thought of touching the swollen bruises again and hoping that she could forget about them once more if she avoided them hard enough.

She adjusted the new camisole she had changed into as she opened the door to her bedroom and peeked out towards the couch. Blaine looked back at her with an uncertain smile, hearing the door open. She smiled in return, and his features melted into a broader, beaming grin as though warmed into a gooey mess by the fervor of his affection. After having looked in the mirror, she wasn't sure how he was looking at her like she was Christmas, and fireworks, and summer vacation all rolled into one, but she needed that. "Hey," she breathed softly.

Blaine padded over to her in his bedroom slippers, and he rested against the door jamb as he leaned over her. "Hey," he breathed in return. "Need anything before I turn in for the night? I could tuck you in..." he suggested. Peyton raised her chin, pursing her lips in a small o and tilting her head to one side to expose the long line of her throat to him. "Read you a bedtime story...?" he added, wrinkling his nose in an adorable way as he pressed his lips together, and Peyton laughed. "Sing you a lullaby..." he said in a husky whisper as he leaned his face close to hers.

Peyton's eyes widened, her pupils spinning outwards as she inhaled the spicy scent of his cologne, and she stared into his summer blue eyes, his pupils dark and large, as his gaze fixed upon her lips. "Maybe a kiss goodnight..." she suggested, leaning forwards and seeking the velvety warmth of his lips against hers. His arms came to rest on either side of her as he braced himself against the wall, and Peyton sighed into his mouth at the dangerous thrill of being caught in the cage of his arms, yet she could think of no place that felt safer. His lips brushing against hers were as soft as the fluffy antennae of a moth, as sensitive as the whiskers of a cat, and as supple as a rose petal. The weight of his body pinning her against the wall was the only thing keeping her upright as the slow probing of his tongue turned her shaking knees to jelly.

Blaine rested his brow against hers, careful not to let any other part of their foreheads touch. If this had been six months ago when they were together and he was still human, he doubted anything would have stopped him from following Peyton into her room. After a full day of having her beside him, he didn't like having her out of his arms for the night. He hated it. Even just sitting guard by her bedside again to know she was okay would be reassuring.

"Maybe once Mama Hen has gone to sleep you can sneak in for a visit," Peyton whispered against his lips. She could see something hot and hungry spark behind his eyes before he stamped it out violently. He cupped her soft cheek in his palm.

"It's... probably better not to piss off your guardian," he said, dragging out the first word as though hemming and hawing over a difficult decision, "She could go full zombie... and she knows how to use a scalpel." He looked downward meaningfully and cleared his throat. Peyton tried not to laugh.

Peyton trailed her fingers down his chest as Blaine took a step backwards with a rolling motion. "So I guess this is good night..." she told him.

He nodded, stepping backwards without looking away from her. "Yeah... So good night then." He paused. "If-uh... If you need anything, I'm... uh... right out here," he told her pointing towards the couch behind him with his thumb. Peyton nodded, her features soft. She ran her hand down the edge of the doorway as she tiptoed back inside with a lingering glance back at Blaine. The door closed behind her with a quiet click.

The bed felt too big as she turned back the linens and slid between the cold sheets. It felt even bigger without Blaine's warmth beside her. She ran one arm out beside her and stroked the cold spot where he normally slept, letting the chill seep into her palm. Between Blaine's constant presence and the coming and going of the hospital staff she hadn't felt alone for a second last night, but sequestered in the windowless blackness of her room she felt isolated even with the knowledge that Blaine and Liv were just beyond the door. She grabbed the spare pillow and hugged it tight, trying to imagine that she was curled up with Blaine.

Clinging to the pillow, Peyton willed herself to think calming thoughts as she tried to relax her mind. Still she strained for any sound in the darkness that would indicate that she wasn't alone, hoping for the reassuring sounds of her loved ones but anxious that she might instead hear the unfamiliar and sinister step of an attacker lurking in the shadows. Eventually, exhaustion overpowered anxiety, and Peyton fell into a fitful sleep. But her demons followed her and found their way into her dreams.

The smell of blood filled her nostrils as images flashed through her mind like a disjointed slideshow. Screams filled the chaos around her so thickly that they almost overwhelmed her as the body of a man in a grey suit thudded through the glass of a nearby office door. Hot red blood gushed from his throat, where broken glass sliced into his skin, cutting through his windpipe, opening artery and vein, and leaving him unable to scream though he clearly was trying. His eyes turned vacant within moments. Then the red eyed creature behind the dead man grasped him by the head and set about tearing open the man's skull. Peyton's scream joined the cacophony around her--no more noticable than a single drop of water in the ocean.

She saw the sleeve of Janet's plum blazer clutched in her fingers as she shoved the crying secretary into the coat closet. Janet's black hair glistened as she begged with tearful, hazel eyes for Peyton not to leave her alone.

Something slammed into Peyton's back, knocking her off her feet and leaving her bowed on hands and knees on the carpet. A claw like grip on the back of her jacket spun her around to stare up into the blazing red eyes of a raging zombie, while she cried over all the death and readied herself to be slaughtered like everyone around her. Then a deep and gravely voice just behind the zombie said, "That one is mine."

Peyton shrieked as she dangled by her hair and fought to at least get the tips of her toes onto the floor before a huge chunk of her scalp could be ripped away. She only caught snippets of words as she struggled and screamed... and Angus spat and snarled his rambling sermon.

"This flesh too will putrify..." she tried to reach for the white skin of his hand with her nails so that she could claw open his skin and try to break free. His head whipped around to stare at her with almost pity and beneficence in his long face and sharp features. His hair was the same color as Blaine's now, and it frightened her.

"... only the holy brain..." Dear God, Blaine's father was about to kill her. The irony of Blaine saving her life from Mr. Boss only for his father to take it later struck her like a fist to her solar plexus. She struggled to gain a hysterical breath.

".... his glorious undead." She remembered Blaine telling her that she had an inkling what kind of twisted upbringing he'd had after meeting Angus in his office. She hadn't really. She sagged suddenly sobbing for Blaine as her mind filled in the spaces of what Angus was capable of. What would a person do to get away from such a past? _I'm sorry, Blaine_ , she thought bitterly.

"But behold my gift!" With a shocking sudden burst Angus slammed her forehead against the wall with a resounding crack that exploded inside Peyton's head. She was drowning in the pain. Her mouth filled with the tastes of blood and bile, metallic and acid. The world suddenly seemed so far away. She could faintly hear Angus still speaking. "The choice is upon you, my son." Then the blackness reached out to claim her. Her last thought was, " _Is this how it feels to die?_ "

Peyton awoke screaming with Blaine pale faced and half-kneeling on her bed as he gently shook her shoulder and Liv's worried face at the door as she hurried into the room. Peyton could see her clearly over Blaine's shoulder as Peyton threw herself into Blaine's arms. Liv's face was as pale as Blaine's in the light flooding in from the doorway, and she realized vaguely that Liv was on the cusp of going full on zombie. She wrapped her arms and legs around Blaine like a small child wanting to be picked up and comforted, and she shook as Liv joined into the hug.

The dream itself had slipped away, returning to a formless monster lurking in the depths of her subconscious, but the fear it had pulled out of her still gripped her as tightly as Blaine and Liv did, and for the first time she let herself cry without a shred of restraint in their arms. Blaine warned her before switching on the bedside lamp.

"It's okay. I've got you," Blaine told her, kissing her temple and stroking the back of her head.

"You're safe! I won't let anyone hurt you," Liv promised. She buried her face against Peyton's shoulder and rubbed Peyton's back up and down.

Peyton cried until she felt too tired to cry anymore. She sniffled. Then she took a shuddering breath. Liv scrambled to get Peyton some tissues from the desk, and Peyton blew her nose into the handful of them with a small "thank you."

"Would you feel better if you talked about it, or...?" Liv asked.

"Can't remember it, just a few stray thoughts and feelings," Peyton admitted. She finally leaned back, and Blaine wiped her cheeks with his thumb. "Did I wake the whole building screaming? Should we be expecting an eviction notice... or a police visit?" Peyton's tone was light and joking, but her cheeks flushed as though with growing embarrassment.

"You were calling for Blaine at first. You only screamed twice towards the end," Liv explained. "If you woke anyone else, I'm sure they'll get over it."

"If they don't, they can screw off," Blaine supplied helpfully. He gave Peyton's shoulder a playful nudge. "Want me to fix you a hot chocolate or something before you try to go back to sleep?"

"We've got marshmallows," Liv added, her voice a siren's song of temptation.

"No thanks," Peyton said. She caught her lower lip between her teeth and gnawed worriedly. She straightened with resolve as Blaine's fingers curled around hers. When she spoke her voice was gentle but firm. "Liv, sweetie, I love you, and I gave this a try for you... but this sleeping arrangement isn't going to work." Blaine looked up from their joined fingers, his eyes wide with alarm. Peyton tightened her leg over his. "I clearly sleep better and feel safer with Blaine beside me. Nobody was flailing around. No nightmares last night or today. He's staying in here." Blaine looked towards Liv, as though he were awaiting a shivving. Peyton squeezed his hand.

"We tried it my way, and it didn't work," Liv said. She brushed a stray tendril of hair away from Peyton's face. She sighed, her eyes brimming with tears. "I was just trying to help. I don't want to see you get hurt again," Liv added, "and I'm worried that I messed up big."

Peyton hugged her and made a comforting shushing sound. "It was worth trying. I'm not upset with you, but I know what I need right now," Peyton assured her.

Liv opened her mouth, a look of deep conflict etched across her face. Blaine held his breath, waiting for her to decide whether it was time to tell Peyton everything. Looking at the wad of tissue still in Peyton's other hand, Liv flashed Peyton a wan smile. She rose from the bed and gave Peyton a kiss on the top of her head before heading to the door. Apparently, the severity of the nightmare and Peyton's anxiety had won out as the greater cause for concern for the moment.

"Liv, would you mind getting the door on the way out?" Peyton yawned. She turned her attention towards Blaine. "On the brightside, you can change out of those clothes and sleep comfortably. I think I snotted all over your shirt." She ran her fingers across the damp fabric of Blaine's tee-shirt, and he inhaled sharply.

"I was thinking maybe just for tonight we could leave the door open," Blaine piped up as Liv froze in the doorway. "Even knowing that nobody could've gotten past me, my heart was in my throat when I heard you calling for me. Liv looked like she was having a small heart attack coming down that hall. I think we're all a little shaky." He looked down at the shoulder of his shirt. "...and I think you're right about the shirt," he added.

Liv turned around and gave Peyton a wide-eyed, silent, pleading look, and Peyton hung her head with a groan as she caved to the request. "Fine. And, _you_... just take off the shirt, and get in bed," Peyton said, scooting over to one side of the mattress and holding the sheets back for Blaine while he flicked off the light and changed out of the offending garment.

"You wanna be big spoon or little spoon?" Blaine asked as he joined her, and Peyton propped herself up on one elbow to study him in the dim light in the room. She could just make out the flat planes of his chest, the gentle rolling shapes of his muscles over his ribs, and the toned curves of his abdominals. As the little spoon she had the chance to sleep crushed against his chest and wrapped in his protective arms, but as the big spoon...

"Big spoon," she announced without the slightest hint of hesitation. She wondered if her smile looked too hungry even in the half-light. If it showed, Blaine hadn't noticed. With a warm grin he took her hand in his and kissed her knuckles. Then he rolled onto his side, bringing her arm around his waist as he nestled into the bed.

Peyton pressed her lips between his shoulder blades, her lips brushing against the tender skin over his spine, and Blaine made a soft hum of contentment. Peyton found a comfortable position for her head with her cheek pressed against his back so her forehead didn't press against the back of Blaine's shoulder. She traced her fingers back and forth over the his ribs with a light and lazy touch.

Blaine relaxed under her soothing caresses, and his mind started to drift as he fell into the familiar security of their bedtime rituals and sleep habits. His grip on Peyton's hand loosened as he drowsed, and she used the opportunity to free her hand and explore a wider expanse of his ribs. She snaked her other arm beneath his waist, Blaine moving instinctively to accomodate her so that she could curl her arm around his middle if she wanted. She spread her fingers as her hand ran across his vulnerable tummy, enjoying the way his skin yielded beneath her touch. Once her arm was in place she rested her hand against the side of his waist, and she stroked her fingers against his obliques.

She planted a quick kiss against the crook of his throat before quickly darting back to having her cheek pressed against him. "Mmmmph," Blaine murmured through his sleepy haze. His breathing grew deep and regular, and Peyton brought her other hand down from his ribs. Lower. Lower. Finally, her hand came to alight upon his groin, cupping his genitals in her possessive palm the way Blaine had remarked that he enjoyed when they spooned. She massaged him with an aimless flexing of her palm and fingers around him. He stirred against her hand.

Blaine had nearly lost himself in the snuggling and the velvet-black darkness. His entire world had whittled itself down to the warmth and comfort of Peyton pressed against him as all thought left him. Sleep was loosening the last lock on his consciousness in order to wrest him into its embrace when the bliss-filled, tingling reports from his nerves suddenly got even nicer. He pressed his hips forward, seeking more contact with Peyton's gentle hand. His mind conjured dreamy images of Peyton reaching inside his sleep pants to stroke him more thoroughly.

The fantasy snapped him back to full alertness, and he grasped Peyton's hands drawing her rolling fingers away from the front of his sleep pants and pulling his hips back before reality could follow the course of his fantasy. "Woah. Woah. Woah," he told her, his voice sharper than intended, honed by the sudden panic he felt at all the ways this could explode in his face if he didn't stop her.

Peyton tensed as Blaine pushed her hands away from his groin. She reeled at his unexpected reaction, and her chest stung with the confusion and shame rushing in to fill her lungs like searing salt water. She pulled away as if burned by his rejection. "So, you don't even want me to touch you? Because that is usually your favorite thing when I'm big spoon. What aren't you telling me? What's wrong?" Peyton demanded, keeping her voice low.

The last time he'd pushed her away had been because they'd had the spectre of his memory returning hanging over them like the sword of Damocles. He'd pushed her away to spare her regretting being intimate with him if he returned to being the old Blaine. _What's wrong this time?_ Peyton wondered. _Is he trying to protect me again, or does he want out because this all too much for him? Maybe he just feels too guilty to tell me._

Blaine rolled over to face her. He pulled her against his chest, his worried eyes gazing directly into her own. He grasped her hands in his holding them inbetween them. "That's not it. Of course I want you to touch me," he said, his voice soft but vehement. "I'm," he paused searching for a reason he could actually give her without lying, "I'm holding back because I don't want to hurt you."

Peyton's lower lip trembled, and her eyes filled with tears. "What does that even mean? For fuck's sake, Blaine. You're one person I don't need to be protected from. I almost died! I thought that being kidnapped by Mr Boss was as scary as it got, but this was so much worse. I woke up in a pile of my dead coworkers, people I _knew_. My secretary, Janet... I was staring into their faces, and their heads had been ripped wide open. My head hurt so much I thought it was about to tear apart too." As she spoke her body shivered, the trembling growing more intense with each word she uttered despite Blaine's attempts to soothe and warm her by rubbing her shaking limbs and holding her close. "I keep trying not to think about it. Trying not to dwell on it. Trying not to panic, but it's always just below the surface waiting to jump out at me when my mind is too still, or I close my eyes, or I'm alone... I don't know what else is lurking inside my memory, but I know it's horrible."

"I'll kill him. I will _kill_ him, and I will _make_ it hurt," Blaine swore, stroking her cheek and staring her in the eyes by the dim light coming in through the open bedroom door. His eyes glistened, and his voice sounded thick and raspy.  

Peyton shook her head. "That's not what I need from you. I want to feel alive... normal... connected to you. I don't want to feel alone right now, but every time I try to get close you push me away! It's not about sex. I know that's off the table until after the recheck. Just find some way to stop holding me at a distance! You always sleep in the nude, but suddenly you want your clothes on and the door open? You push my hands away when I try to touch you. You sided with Liv when she didn't want you to sleep in here at all! I can't tell if the problem is the fear of hurting me or just me."

Blaine cradled her face between his palms as though he were cradling a precious treasure. His eyes swam with pain, and his tears caught in her lashes as he kissed her. He rolled Peyton onto her back so that he was lying on top of her, every curve of his body wedded to hers. "When I got the call telling me what happened, I had a horrible moment when I thought you'd been killed," he admitted. Peyton wrapped her arms around his back, stroking his shoulder blades and spine in relaxing swirls. Her legs came up along either side of his hips, and Blaine exhaled a shaky breath as the tension drained from his shoulders.

"I don't want to push you away, Peyton," he said, between soft, lingering kisses. "I want to be so wrapped up in each other the rest of the world disappears, but you keep getting hurt because of me. You got hurt because I lied and hid things from you. You got hurt because a crime lord wanted me dead, and now this.... this was done by my father... I don't want to hurt you again, especially because I'm still a selfish bastard who can't draw a line and stick to it."

"You are not responsible for what the old Blaine did," Peyton insisted, and Blaine squinched his eyes tightly shut and bit his lips together into a thin line, shaking his head in refusal of her platitude.

"What if that division is bullshit, Peyton? What if the old Blaine really did love you, and I can't just walk away from the past?" Blaine couldn't bear to hear her telling him that it wasn't true when he knew that it was, so he kissed her before she could try to reassure him again. "Just think about it, okay?" he whispered. He kissed her as if he could somehow say all the things he was still holding inside without words, and Peyton wrapped herself around him holding onto him for all she was worth. Blaine suckled at the side of her throat, and Peyton writhed against him grasping at the muscles of his back. Her toes curled, and she and Blaine fell into long, slow kisses that soothed their feelings of isolation and left their minds dizzy as though the endorphins were filling their brains like champagne bubbles. _Just this_ , Blaine thought to himself. _If I can just hold on to every second of this, it'll be enough._

They faded into stretches of peaceful silence, punctuated by bursts of giggles and whispers, until the silences grew longer, and they slept in the tangled web of one another's limbs... at least until the early hours of the morning when shortly before dawn Blaine was awakened by a sharp poke to the shoulder.

"We need to talk," Liv whispered. She looked as though she hadn't slept well and had spent the entire night working herself into a state to be reckoned with. Blaine disentangled himself from Peyton with slow, careful movements so as not to wake her. Then he grabbed his discarded tee-shirt from the floor and followed Liv out into the hallway of the apartment building, leaving the door to the apartment slightly ajar behind them.

"This was a mistake. This was a huge mistake," Liv announced, turning on him as soon as they were alone.

Blaine crossed his arms over his chest. "What have i done now that I should know about?" he responded.

The movement and sudden cold as Blaine crept out of bed had awakened Peyton, but upon realizing that Liv was summoning him out for a private conversation she had chosen to remain silent. After they had left the room, Peyton had quietly gotten up to follow and find out what could possibly warrant such an odd, clandestine discussion.

Peyton could hear their cross voices even before she reached the door to the apartment. She stood slightly back from the doorway wondering what the hell Liv meant. Her heart fluttered as a nervous wave passed through Peyton. Curiosity getting the better of her, she leaned forward to peak around the corner of the doorway to see what exactly was happening. Liv was pacing back and forth, while Blaine glowered at her.

"I was trying to help Peyton, but I clearly didn't think this through well, enough," Liv explained, shaking her head back and forth. Her arm sliced through the air between them as though she could slice through the connection between him and Peyton. "You were never supposed to get this close to her again. This was just supposed to be a simple, temporary fix until Peyton's memory came back or she was calm enough for us to tell her, but things just never got calm." Peyton's jaw dropped, and she gawped in disbelief at what she'd just heard.

Liv paced away from Blaine, turned on her heel, and ran her hands through her shoulder-length white hair. The motion took her uneven locks from bedhead to rat's nest. "Her memory was supposed to be back by now! They're usually back in a day. Now I'm going to be the shitty friend who brought her ex back into her life and let her think you were still together. You have to pull away. Go back to Romero's," Liv ordered, raising her hand at him in a stopping gesture though Blaine had never moved from the spot where he seemed rooted.

Peyton covered her mouth with her left hand. The pounding in her head was back, and she could hear her heartbeat in her ears as she swayed and caught herself by grasping the wooden door jamb. _So much for the no secrets club_ , Peyton thought to herself heat rising in her chest and her teeth grinding.

"Funny, I remember you saying in the worst case we'd give it until the recheck," Blaine shot back, clearly annoyed from the sound of it.

"That was when you were supposed to be sleeping on the couch! Before you spent the whole day snuggling and playing house in our living room. Before she tried to seduce you in our kitchen. Before she was making plans to bring Clive to your piano show."

At Liv's mention of Blaine's show Peyton had a sudden flash that nearly sent her to the floor in surprise. She remembered feeling angry and so very hurt, standing in the foyer of Major's house. "Blaine has his regular show tonight at 8," Peyton had said to goad an angry Liv who was looking to beat him up for something... Peyton sucked in a deep breath trying to remain as quiet and still as possible as the memory faded into the background.

"Well, if you're lucky maybe she'll remember when she wakes up." Blaine's sarcastic voice rang sharp and hard in Peyton's ears. "The pretense will be over, Ravi can move back into your bedroom, and you can all be rid of me again. Then you can tell her how desperate you were, and she'll forgive you anything. That your dream scenario, Liv?"

More flashes. Ravi and Liv laughing and kissing in the doorway as he arrived for his first sleepover. Liv asking Peyton to take a job that Baracus had offered her in order to keep an eye on him. Peyton sitting on her desk staring out the window of her office while lost in sad and longing thoughts about Blaine.

"Don't you dare play the victim in this!" Liv growled, but Blaine was too intent upon the attack to hear her.

"Blaine, please come to the hospital! We need you to help us keep Peyton calm because they can't sedate her. Oh, and let her think you're still together because she's already overwhelmed after the attack," Blaine chirped in a high-pitched, acid impression of Liv. He planted his hands on his hips and leaned towards Liv just slightly. "How exactly do I do that without acting the way she would expect from me? If you didn't expect me to hold her when she was looking for comfort, what did you expect? I'd give her a pat on the head? Buy her an ice cream?"

Peyton's head pounded as another moment flickered in her memory. They'd been alone in the warm glow of Blaine's office. "If this is the real you, does it really matter how we got here?" Peyton had asked him over a surprise meal of Thai food. She'd been digging, searching for confirmation.

"Just don't forget Peyton is the one who is going to have to relive everything once her memory returns," Liv said. She fixed Blaine with a cold and accusatory stare, and Peyton pressed herself harder against the door frame so as not to be seen.

She saw Blaine's jaw tighten, the muscle jumping in tension. "How exactly would I forget the moment I've been dreading for the past 36 hours?! No, Liv, I haven't forgotten, and Peyton isn't the only one who is going to have to relive it!" She could see a crimson flush rising up the back of his neck.

Peyton remembered sitting in the chair in Blaine's office with him sitting beside her. His eyes, completely unguarded and filled with great seriousness, stared into hers as he told her, "That's what gave me the idea... that I could change my life..."

"Seeing her look at me the way she used to, living in this little fantasy, pretending that I never lost her is ripping open all the old wounds for me too! You seem to think I have some magical way of protecting myself. Well, newsflash: I don't! There's no such thing as being able to keep any emotional walls up to protect myself because any time I pull back to protect either of us, Peyton notices. And at the end of this when she remembers everything... remembers how I lied to her before... how do you think she's going to feel about me lying to her again no matter how much I'm trying to help? I'm _painfully_ aware of how this ends. This ends with me losing her all over again... but I'm still here trying to help. At least give me some goddamn credit for that."

Peyton's heart hammered in her chest, and she wasn't sure whether she should run or fling the door open telling them both off before locking the pair of them outside.

"So why are you here doing this?" Liv asked. She crossed her arms over her chest.

"Why d'ya think?"

Peyton tore herself away from the door and used the wall to prop herself upright as another fleeting piece of memory crashed into her like a meteor. "This is me," Blaine had confessed with plaintive eyes staring straight into her. "...guy who feels lucky everytime you walk through that door."

By this point her head hurt so badly she wanted to yell at someone. She closed her eyes and rubbed the top of her scalp, trying to relieve some of the tension. "That son of a bitch had better hope Detective Babbineaux finds him first," Blaine was hissing at Liv outside, and, as much as Peyton wanted to linger in case there was more of importance, the headache and the insistent fluttering of returning memories like moths beating their wings against a lighted window were just too much. Before she could be discovered, she tottered back to bed-- her head filled with noise, dark emotions, flashes of memory, and throbbing pain.


	4. Oh, Mommy!

Blaine tiptoed back into the room prepared to slip quietly back to bed when he stopped short. Peyton was lying on her side with her back to him and her knees drawn up to her middle. Her hands cupped the top of her head protectively, and her arms obscured her face. The covers hadn't quite been drawn back over her, and a shiver seized her as he watched. Her body language screamed pain. Unbidden fear crawled up his spine and wrapped itself around his brain.

Stealthiness forgotten, Blaine raced to the bed. "Peyton?" he called, trying to keep his voice soft as he rested his hand on her shoulder and gave it an insistent squeeze. He didn't want to shake her for fear of hurting her. "What's wrong?"

"Headache's back," she groaned, and Blaine ran his hand down her arm.

"I'll get Liv and your meds," he offered, already scrambling off the bed.

"No!" Peyton moaned after him. "Don't wanna be prodded! Just the pills!"

Already in the doorway Blaine looked back at her and nodded. Realizing she couldn't see it anyhow he headed into the kitchen to grab her painkillers and a glass of water. He remembered her mentioning waking up from their nap yesterday with a headache too. Somehow, the thought didn't reassure him.

"Everything okay?" Liv asked in concern, padding out of the bathroom. Her eyes flicked to his hands as he shook a couple of pills into his palm. The atmosphere between them was still chilly, but there was a steadfast understanding between them to put it all aside when Peyton needed them to do so.

"Headache's back. Peyton needs her medication," he answered, heading back towards the bedroom. He stepped around Liv, who stood paused and biting the inside of her cheek in the middle of his path. "Said she didn't want to be prodded. Sounds like she wants to rest a bit. If it doesn't go away soon, I'll get you," he said before Liv could make any offers.

He strode back into the room trying not to spill anything. He walked around the bed, holding out the glass and waiting completely still while Peyton fished the tablets out of his cupped hand, swallowed them, and washed everything down with a large sip of water. Liv peeked into the room from a distance, but made no move to enter. After a moment she headed back towards the kitchen to fix herself some coffee and breakfast.

"Anything else I can do?" Blaine asked. He set the glass on the nightstand.

Peyton stared up at him. Another tremor ran through her, and she croaked in a reedy voice, "Where were you when I first woke up?"

"Went to the bathroom, and I ran into Liv on the way out. We had a little talk. She was worried about you after last night," Blaine told her. She noted the kernal of truth in what he said. _They say the best lies contain a kernal of truth_ , she thought. She could see something dark shifting behind Blaine's eyes as he watched her wince in pain.

"What's that look?" Peyton asked. Something about his countenance reminded her of the way he'd looked after Angus had left his office after the will incident. It was an expression built from thick walls and guarded fury.

"Picturing my dad getting a taste of his own medicine," Blaine replied. Peyton felt a knot in her chest at his intense expression, and she wondered what had become of the gun she knew he'd had when he stood guard over her at the hospital. She remembered the raw emotion with which he'd threatened to kill his father last night, and she realized that she might have made a terrible mistake in telling him too much--letting him see the trauma she'd felt in her first remembered moments after the attack. She'd thought she'd been talking to New Blaine, and she had made the mistake of thinking his gentleness with her was a sign that he was harmless now... well, unless backed into a corner to protect her from immediate danger. This wasn't some harmless puppy standing in front of her; this was full on Blaine DeBeers.

She remembered the sensation of his lips against hers and the weight of his body on top of her as he had asked, "What if that division is bullshit, Peyton? What if the old Blaine really did love you, and I can't just walk away from the past?" The sensory memory sent a zing of nervous desire through her, while the words sunk in. She was in no shape to answer that question at the moment, but she sure as hell wasn't about to let him out of her presence when she had good reason to worry that he might do something genuinely stupid in a misguided attempt to protect her from his father.

"Just get back in bed, be big spoon, and lie quiet..." she told him. Peyton's arms returned to shielding her head, and Blaine meekly made his way around the bed and climbed behind her making as little disturbance as possible. He curled up behind her as instructed and rested one arm around her waist, seemingly afraid to even breathe too loudly.

Peyton still wanted to hollar at Liv and Blaine, but she wondered what other important information she had yet to learn. More memories were trickling back, and she knew that she could learn more by keeping her mouth shut and her ears open for now. She shivered again, and Blaine raised the blankets around her before kissing the back of her shoulder and settling back into his own private thoughts. She could feel him occassionally casting worried glances at her before quickly looking away. Despite her current anger, Peyton still felt gratitude and a squirming guilt in the pit of her stomach over Blaine's concern for her that left her even more muddled in confusion.

The stillness and darkness of the room took the edge off, and soon enough the medication kicked in. Peyton began to relax as the tension in her head ebbed. As she slackened in his arms Blaine exhaled in relief, and he ran his nose upwards against her spine in a show of affection. She couldn't decide if she wanted to hit him or hug him.

Once she confronted everyone with having her memories restored she would have to face all the complications between them. He'd seemed so resigned to her returning memory meaning the end that she wondered if he simply intended to slink away when that time came. The thought bothered her. So many thoughts bothered her currently. If she had been so angry as to kick him out of her life before, why had it been Blaine's comfort she'd immediately sought? Had it really been a coincidence that her mind had taken her back to a time when they had still been together? She had so many answers to cobble together before she would feel ready to confront anyone.

Peyton dropped her arms away from her head, and she took Blaine's hand experimentally in her own. She brought his hand to the center of her chest, and she pressed it between her breasts so that his palm rested against her breast bone. She traced her fingers over his as she held his hand in place over the strong beat of her heart. With an exhale Blaine burrowed his face through her hair and into the crook of her neck. After everything she knew about him, being enfolded in his strong arms shouldn't lull her into such a sense of security, and it certainly shouldn't feel so damned good to be pressed against his lean body. But, God help her, it did.

Curious what he would do, Peyton wiggled her bottom against Blaine's groin as she leaned into his embrace. Blaine groaned against her ear, his breathing going heavy immediately. He pulled his hand out of her grip, and he used his hand to still her hips in an attempt to be the strict adult. "I'm trying really hard to be a good boy here," he said. Peyton could see the shape of the line he'd drawn for himself, and it added to her security to know where the boundary was.

Her mind flashed upon Angus's face, deathly white as though all the blood had drained away into his crazed, hate-filled, ruby eyes. The black veins showing through his skin seemed to be filled with something evil, and her mind conjured the image of whatever black ooze had bubbled out from his rotting soul flowing through those veins. "And when the prodigal son finally pulled his head out of his ass and made a success of himself, lo did his father celebrate! For his shall be the _power_ and the _glory_! I'm preparing the way for zombie Jesus! And if you'll pardon the expression, you, Miss Charles, are the phatted calf... and I do mean that with a P-H." He leered at her, and Peyton spat in his face. His laughter chilled her, and she feared what Angus had planned for them all.

Peyton clutched Blaine's hand again as a cold shudder ran through her from her toes to her head, and she gasped despite herself. Peyton pulled his arm back over her, as though she could draw him around her like a protective cloak. "Hey, you okay? Your pulse just went through the roof," Blaine said. "The headache's not coming back, is it?"

"No," Peyton replied. "It's not that. Just jumping at shadows."

He wrapped both arms around her, and Peyton turned to bury herself against his chest as he threw one leg over hers. No matter how wrong it was for her to turn to a man like Blaine DeBeers, she knew he would protect her with his life. "I thought the point of having me in here was that you felt safe with me," he said.

"I do. This is just lingering feelings from earlier," Peyton told him. _At least one of those statements was true_ , she thought. She wondered if similar stray guilty thoughts ran through his mind when he lied to her. He hadn't seemed happy about the lying either, but his mind felt like an impenetrable fortress at the moment.

"From the nightmare?" Blaine's fingers brushed her hair back where it had loosened while they slept and tendrils had come free. "Did you... uh... did you remember anything more about it?" Now that she knew to look, she could see that keen intelligence behind his eyes that was just a hair too interested.

"I was afraid I was going to die, and I was worried that something bad was going to happen to you too. I don't know what though," she told him, the emotions she'd felt in this new flash of memory still strong in her mind. She crumpled his tee shirt in her fingers as she pulled him in as close as possible.

Blaine's fingers continued to smooth her hair. "We're both safe and sound. Everything will be fine." He sounded so convincing as though there really could be no other outcome, and she nodded, needing to lose herself in his certainty for the moment. She drifted back to sleep content that nothing could touch them in the here and now.

They didn't rise until late morning. Peyton took a long hot shower to think and unwind without scrutiny, and Blaine and Peyton were still having breakfast when a furious pounding at the front door made them jump. It was quickly followed by the sound of the person outside leaning on the doorbell. Peyton's stomach sank as she recognized the frantic habit from a lifetime of experience. "Oh, God," she muttered under her breath as Liv raced to the front door. Blaine stared at her with wide, questioning eyes and the long handle of an upside down spoon hanging out of his mouth--a half eaten yogurt container suddenly forgotten in front of him.

"Where is she? I know she needs her rest, but I'm her mother and there's nobody more qualified to take care of my baby!" thundered the hysterical voice of Peyton's mother. "Since when am I not the first person the hospital calls? I do not appreciate that, young lady! Eighteen hours I was in labor to bring you into this world, and all I rated is a text message from Liv to tell me that... Oh, My God, Liv! You said she wasn't seriously injured!" Mrs. Charles dropped her purse inside the doorway and hurried to the side of her cringing daughter to frame Peyton's face in her outstretched fingers.

"Mom, it's not as bad as it looks," Peyton protested, as Mrs. Charles pushed Peyton's head from side to side for a better view of her injuries. Peyton had already gotten a look at the completely formed black eyes and a lump that would make a camel envious covering most of her forehead this morning. She tried to pull away knowing that whatever came out of her mother's mouth next was likely to rip away whatever healing Peyton had begun to feel. She was already self-conscious waiting for the words to fall.

"Well, that's good, because you look like you've been hit by a truck! Wait till your father sees this! He's going to hit the roof. We told you, this job is too dangerous! It was bad enough when it was that Mr. Boss taskforce-"

"Where is Dad, anyhow?" "Mrs. Charles, would you like a cup of coffee?" "I don't believe we've met yet. I'm Peyton's boyfriend, Blaine." They all interjected at once, trying to change the subject before Mrs. Charles could mention Peyton's new job as Chief of Staff, which Blaine and Liv thought Peyton couldn't remember.

Mrs. Charles stopped short, staring between them as she tucked a lock of earthy brown hair behind her ear. Her eyes narrowed with interest as she noted the way Peyton leaned into Blaine and his hand resting on top of Peyton's hip, his arm curled supportively around her back. "Your father had an early case to hear, but he sends his love and asked me for updates on how you are." She turned her attention on Liv like a headlamp. "That would be lovely, Olivia... and could you please put a little splash of something in it," she said with a look towards the bottle of whiskey on the counter. Then she turned back towards Blaine and Peyton.

Her green eyes locked onto Blaine's platinum hair, and her jaw tightened as she openly compared his hair with Liv's. "So, Blaine, are you another of Peyton's zombie friends?" she asked with a voice edged in suspiciously sweet treacle--and just as sticky a trap.

The warmth dropped out of Liv's expression at the implications about zombies contained in that question. "The sugar is in the bowl, and there's cream in the fridge," she told Mrs. Charles in a noticably less welcoming tone than before.

"You know this isn't about you, Olivia. You've been Peyton's best friend for years, and I know being a zombie hasn't changed that one bit. You know it's not that simple for romantic relationships. They warned all about it on the television."

"Oh, my God, Mom!"

"Well, apparently I no longer rate highly enough to be told about your life," her mother countered with the fullest guilt inducing tone that a mother could manage.

"Mrs. Charles, I'm really sorry that you feel you've been left out of the loop, but that's not Peyton's fault. She's been resting on doctors' orders, and she's supposed to be keeping things low stress. If you want more updates give me your number, and I'll be happy to text you... but _this_ isn't low stress," Blaine said, using the same tone of voice that had served him so well upselling funeral packages at Shady Plots or dealing with a particularly difficult customer at Romero's. Mrs. Charles gave Blaine a more thorough appraisal, as she weighed her opinion on him and his offer.

"Blaine's best friends with Miss Clairol, Mom, so just relax," Peyton said in exasperation.

Blaine's eyes slid to her, and his arm tensed around her waist ever so slightly. "My stylist would be heatbroken to hear you say that," he told her in a wounded voice.

Peyton suspected that if anyone was wounded it was Blaine's own vanity that took the hit. She nearly responded with a whispered retort about how the carpets didn't match the drapes, but it struck her that she really didn't know that anymore. Had Blaine's near panic when she'd touched him been about the fact that they weren't together anymore, or had there been a whole other layer to it? She remembered how he'd seemed as pale as Liv after her nightmare, and she realized they'd both been on the edge of going full zombie. Peyton could feel her heart sink into her stomach at the thought, and her throat suddenly refused to cooperate. Instead of responding verbally to him, she gave his hand a pat and turned her attention back to her mother hoping that her face hadn't betrayed her thoughts.

"And, Mom, I don't want to hear any more anti-zombie sentiment in my home. That doesn't even really sound like you. That kind of negativity sounds like Dad," Peyton warned. Liv shot her a grateful look over her mother's shoulder, and Blaine gave her a look that she could only describe as admiring.

"I'm just concerned about you getting involved in a complicated relationship when you already have such a demanding career. And you know how your father worries," Mrs. Charles sighed. "And after so many years on the bench he's seen enough bad things to be really good at worrying."

Peyton tapped the toe of her slipper against the wooden floor, and she picked up Blaine's spoon, dipping it in and out of the yogurt a few times in frustration before taking a bite for herself. Peyton caught her mother's eye, and she looked briefly to Blaine in a silent demand that her mother actually talk to him.

Blaine traced a circle low on her back with his fingers; and, maintaining a bland, friendly expression, he fixed his attention on Mrs. Charles, who was also trying to look friendly towards him. "So tell me a bit about yourself, Blaine. What do you do for a living?" she asked trying to open up a conversation that would appease her daughter.

Blaine didn't miss a beat. "I'm a small business owner," he replied evenly. Then with a hint of a smile he added, "I own a cemetery, and I help feed Seattle's zombies. I have for a couple years." His mild expression didn't waver as Mrs. Charles's eyebrows leapt in surprise.

Mrs. Charles picked up the bottle of whiskey that Liv had left by her elbow and added a large splash to her mug before adding the cream and sugar. "I guess that explains the hair," she replied with the barest of grins plucking at the corner of her carefully painted lips as she took a sip of her coffee. She added a second splash of whiskey before making herself comfortable on one of the high stools by the kitchen island. "So what's your full name, Blaine? Do you have any family in Seattle?"

"DeBeers."

"Oh? Like the diamonds?" Mrs. Charles replied with immediate interest.

"No space... and no relation," Blaine corrected. "As for family, my mother died years ago, and my father and I are estranged. Peyton didn't like him when they met either, so it seems I'm in good company on that score." Blaine picked up the whiskey and added a splash to his own cup of black coffee before clacking it lightly against Peyton's mug and taking a sip.

Peyton sighed. "Blaine's interests include gourmet food, movies, and music, Mom. He's very talented. He plays piano, and you should hear him sing. He's also quite knowledgeable about fine wines, and he loves to get involved in the kitchen," Peyton interjected, trying to steer them into a relatively safe and pleasant conversation. Surely, there must be a topic in all that to spark a discussion. As much as she wanted her mother to leave, she didn't want it to be in the midst of a hail of awkward fallout. Her eyes darted to Blaine, and she gave him a silent, pleading look.

Blaine's reticence slowly turned to resolution, and he squeezed her hip briefly in response. "Peyton's told me that her father is a judge, and that you are on the commitee for several major charities, Mrs. Charles. Which charities do you work on?"

Mrs. Charles flushed with pleasure at being asked about her favorite subject. "I donate time and money to the local humane society and to a charity that ensures abused and neglected children have a court appointed special advocate to speak for their interests. I'm also the head of a local ALS charity called the ALS Outreach Society. We have a charity show coming up next month, and we are certainly looking for talented people to perform."

Blaine recognized the name of the charity from when his grandfather had been diagnosed, and he had to nearly bite his tongue to stop himself from accidentally saying more than he was supposed to remember about his past. "I'd be happy to lend my services if you're asking. I love to perform for an audience." He was fairly certain that in a month nobody would still want him to perform. That thought stirred a hollow disappointment in his chest.

"What sort of music do you like to play exactly?" Mrs. Charles asked, now genuinely curious as she was clearly picturing him performing for her function.

"A little of everything. Classical, standards, blues, old school rock and roll... all the way through the present. I have a history as an amateur lounge singer. Do you have any requests?" Blaine answered. He was leaning forward now caught up in the fun of at least planning a performance again. He didn't even notice as Peyton finished off his remaining yogurt with a relieved grin at the turn the conversation had finally taken.

"Oh! There's so many wonderful songs to choose from. We could go for an inspirational song-- though everyone loves a love song. Hmmm. We want something that will inspire people to open their wallets and give," Mrs. Charles mused.

She and Blaine sipped their coffee in unison as they considered the possibilities. "Maybe some John Lennon?" Blaine suggested, and Mrs. Charles gave an "oooooo" of excitement.

Peyton chuckled to herself. She took the opportunity to steal a glance at Liv who was busy rolling her eyes at Blaine's sudden effort to please Peyton's mom. Peyton had been avoiding looking at Liv all morning. As much as her feelings towards both Liv and Blaine were a complicated cocktail of anger and affection, her reluctance to meet Liv's eye wasn't so much about that. She was afraid that Liv would take one look at her and realize that she was remembering. Years of friendship made the risk of slipping and getting caught more precarious. Peyton could bat her eyelashes at Blaine and flirt a little, and he would drop his guard, fail to notice subtle tells. With Liv the safest approach seemed to be to play up the giddy fresh couple vibe, which clearly made Liv feel like an uncomfortable interloper so that she looked away. It filled Peyton with hot guilt to treat her best friend that way, but until a better solution presented itself it was the best she could do. Peyton supposed that Liv hadn't had any ideal options when she'd called upon Blaine's help, so hopefully she would understand.

Peyton smiled in broad contentment and settled onto her elbows and forearms as Blaine launched into a story behind the inspiration for Imagine. Things were turning out to be relaxing after all. From the corner of her eye she saw Liv flinch. Peyton encouraged Liv to join them as Blaine and her mother herded her towards the couch while discussing favorite restaurants and caterers.

"Actually, I want to check in with Ravi to make sure he's doing okay with all the overflow at work," Liv told her. Liv curled her fingers into a mimicry of a telephone and bit her lip.

"Sweetie, if you need to go in, you don't need to worry or feel guilty. You've already gone above and beyond for me. We're fine here," Peyton promised. Peyton could see Liv's concern about leaving Ravi and the department in the lurch written all over Liv's normally impish features. Peyton also suspected that Liv needed a break before she started climbing the walls. Of course, a chance to be out of the view of Liv's watchful eye would also afford Peyton the opportunity to move more freely as she figured out what to do next.

"Oh, Olivia, if you need to do something Blaine and I can hold down the fort. Nobody wants you to get in trouble because you were busy helping Peyton instead of doing something you needed to do," Mrs. Charles announced. Blaine nodded over Mrs. Charles's shoulder to signal Liv that he was comfortable with this arrangement.

"Thank you. I'll keep it in mind while checking in," Liv told them, her body posture uncertain and brittle, and Peyton's mother gave her a quick hug before returning to ushering Peyton and Blaine into the living room.

"It's amazing how many rich and influential zombies there are in this city," Mrs. Charles observed as they settled on the couch, her mother seated next to Blaine while Peyton stretched out with her head on a pillow in Blaine's lap.

"Isn't it just?" Blaine agreed as though they had discovered a conspiracy that nobody had ever noticed before. Of course, this was one conspiracy he knew the truth behind--having preyed upon Seattle's rich himself as the best paying clientele he could turn and then extort money from in exchange for the brains they needed. He was absently petting Peyton's head again, as he handed her the remote.

"I've been hoping I could get one of those exclusive new zombie restaurants to do the catering for potential zombie donors. I mean they practically sprang up overnight, but then I guess they were probably just a secret before. Unfortunately, Romero's doesn't do catering," Mrs. Charles sighed in exasperation. "They don't want to dilute the exclusivity of their brand." She rolled her eyes and flipped her hand as she spoke.

Blaine looked down for a moment. The corner of his mouth pulled taut as though he were thinking better of what he was about to say. After a moment he replied, "I have an in with the owner. He'll make an exception for this." He figured that so long as he kept quiet about being the actual owner, Peyton and Liv might let that much slide once this little fantasy came crashing down around him. There was no substitution for the prestige of being the only event that Romero's would cater--at least with the clientele that Mrs. Charles was hoping to entice into donating. The ALS Outreach Society had helped him finding a suitable hospice for his grandfather. He supposed this was the least he could do.

Something familiar stirred in the back of Peyton's brain at the mention of the name Romero's. Liv had used that name in the hall with Blaine too. _What kind of tie do you actually have to that place?_ Peyton wondered, trying to keep her face neutral. It was time to put a stop to the conversation before anything too revealing could be said, and Peyton had the perfect way to keep things safe for the next two hours and eight minutes. "Okay, everyone here knows the rule. There is no talking during Vertigo. Does anyone have anything they wanted to do before we start?" Peyton reminded them raising the remote.

"Oh, no. This one again?" Peyton's mother laughed, taking her own turn to muss Peyton's hair as though Peyton were still just a little girl stealing flowers out of the neighbor's garden to give her.

"It always comes back to this one sooner or later," Blaine laughed, "Let's just be glad that her favorite isn't something like Sharktopus vs. Gatorconda." Peyton stuck her tongue out, and Blaine gave her a slow blink and a dimpled smile in response. "Just let me get in a quick shower before Miss Moore leaves, and then we can start," Blaine told her.

Liv closed the door to her room quietly behind her before sending Ravi a text and digging out her laptop. After a couple of clicks she waited, and soon Ravi popped up on her screen. "Hey, you okay?" he asked, his dark brows drawn together and his face close to the camera as he adjusted his screen. "What's wrong?"

Liv touched the screen of her laptop, happy to see him. "Let's see. The plan's gone sideways. I had to run to Peyton's room in the middle of the night because she had a screaming nightmare, and then she changed up all the sleeping arrangements. Couldn't sleep worrying about all the ways she's going to kill me when she gets her memory back. Had a fight with Blaine just before dawn. Now Peyton's mom is here, admitting her husband doesn't like zombies and giving me a mini heartattack every time she opens her mouth because I have no idea what she might accidentally say about the past six months. I don't know how The Dark Prince in there is immune, but he's cozying right up to her. I feel like I'm on the cusp of discovering if zombies can get ulcers! The brightside is that with Mrs. Charles here I could come in for a few hours to help out down there." Liv spewed out like an inflated balloon gushing out its contents in one enormous breath until it was completely empty again.

Meanwhile, Ravi listened intently from the other end of the connection. He winced and fretted with her at every frustration as she spoke, but he couldn't suppress the way he lit up at the prospect of Liv coming in to help him. His beaming face brought a smile to Liv's lips, and she realized that right now she could really use a little medical puzzle to focus her thoughts. The routine and structure of working inside the morgue sounded like a heavenly escape after the chaos and uncertainty of the past few days, and Ravi had a way of lightening her mood every time she needed him.

"How have you been holding up?" Liv asked. She crossed her legs, leaning forward on the mattress with interest. She spotted subtle signs of his exhaustion that others would miss--the tell-tale fidgetting that told her that Ravi was was running on caffeine, the bouncing of his leg and his seeming inability to keep his hands still.

"Well, earlier this morning I couldn't figure out why Mrs. Paulson had two spleens, but then I realized I was trying to give her Mr. Castavete's. I am skating on the edge of disaster, but you know me..." He pushed the center of his lips up and raised his eyebrows comically before giving her a dashing expression. "Danger is my middle name," Ravi said in a deep and serious voice, and Liv laughed.

"Sounds like Mrs. Charles arrived in the nick of time then. I'll get changed, and be down there on the double," she told him. She was already pulling hangers out of the closet, and she held a top in front of her chest for Ravi's opinion.

Ravi sighed in relief, and his eyes filled with mischief. "You could keep the camera on. Nobody in here is going to complain--least of all me," he suggested with a teasing wink as he gave the pink and blue striped tee a thumbs up.

Heat colored Liv's cheeks with a pleased flush. She slowly raised the hem of her shirt, trailing her fingers across the skin of her midriff and skirting the edge of her bellybutton with the little carress. Ravi's eyes darkened and he leaned forward, unconsciously. "That's all the peepshow you're getting," Liv announced dropping her tee-shirt. "The last thing either of us needs is Clive walking in on THAT," she noted.

Ravi nodded with reluctance, but he knew she was right. "Yeah. It would hardly be our most professional moment," he conceded. "Oh! I know you said to bring anything I wanted to wear with me, but do you think you could sneak me my blue shirt with the white dots?" he asked with a voice full of hope.

"Nice to see how well you listened to me!" Liv said. One side of her mouth pulled upward, and she shook her head "I'll see what I can do. I'll have to hide it in my purse or under my jacket," she mused. They continued to chat while she laid out her clothes. Then Liv told him a quick "see you soon" before signing off to finish getting ready.

Blaine had just gotten into the shower as Liv came bustling out of her room burbling about heading in to help while she grabbed her jacket. She waved to Peyton and Mrs. Charles, who were still seated and talking on the couch, and they waved back telling her to have a good day and to be safe out there.

Almost as soon as Liv was out the door Peyton turned to her mom. "Actually, it feels a little cool in here. Mind putting up some water in the kettle while I go grab a light cardigan?" She paused, finger to her lips as she pretended to think about the location of her sweater. "I think I loaned it to Liv the other night," she said.

Her mother was already rising to comply, and Peyton wasted no time. She jogged past the bathroom, Blaine's singing audible through the closed door, and hurried into Liv's room. Peyton's electronics hadn't been returned by the police yet, but she knew exactly where Liv's laptop was stored.

Liv hadn't even bothered to return it to it's case alongside her desk, but had left it out sitting beside a folded navy shirt with white polka dots on the comforter of the neatly made bed. Peyton opened it and entered Liv's password, something Liv had given her in case of an emergency so that Peyton could wipe any troubling zombie-related files off the hard drive.

Opening the browser Peyton typed Romero's directly into the search bar. She clicked into the official site, and with a mouth like the Sahara she stared at the photo on the webpage. Very little about the exterior of the building had changed, except the sign that had once said Shady Plots had been replaced with a new sign.

She remembered sitting at a table there with the Mayor and Derek, while Blaine took her order. His blue eyes focused on Peyton as though she were the only person in the world. He made no attempt to hide the love and longing in his gaze, and Peyton could barely look at him as she ordered her steak and another bourbon. If only he'd made the admiration in his eyes something dirty, made her feel like he'd been undressing her with his eyes or made it something profane, then she could have simply ignored him without the quaver in her voice to betray her vulnerability. Instead, he stared at her as though she were hope itself as he complimented her choices, and Peyton had been reduced to hiding behind her waterglass until her power of speech returned.

Shaking herself out of the memory, Peyton ran a search on Angus looking for news items about the attack. She tried clicking into a video titled Zombie Preacher's Messsage to New Seattle and posted by the Alt-Weekly, but it only lead to a broken webpage. Peyton tried a few more links before she could finally load the working video.

The video showed Angus McDonough his bloodstained robes flowing behind him as he marched up the steps of City Hall with his army following like loyal hounds. "My zombie brethren, Filmore-Graves has infested this city like a disease," Angus bellowed. "Less than a thousand zombies enforcing their will over New Seattle, using the corrupt officials inside to to do their bidding. They conspire with the putrid, pus-filled piles of the city government, lead by Mayor Floyd Baracus, the palsied pawn that Chase Graves bought in the last election."

The crowd around Angus jeered and surged forward at his proclamation. "But behold!" he exclaimed as he hefted his hammer aloft. "I am the hammer of God! I am his fire and brimstone come to burn out the infection! I am come to rout this den of thieves! By the power of God I shall cauterize this syphilitic sore eating the very balls of this city! I come before his will made flesh to prepare the way!"

The clack of the front door caught Peyton's ear, she looked up at the sound of Liv's voice announcing, "Crap! I'd forget my head if it wasn't attached."

As Liv's footsteps hurried back towards the room Peyton had only seconds to decide how to respond. Rather than closing the laptop and trying to play it off, Peyton turned to face the door. She took a deep breath and raised her chin as Liv stopped in her tracks in the doorway. Liv's pale features froze in a look of alarm, and Peyton crossed her arms over her chest. "Close the door behind you. We need to talk, or at least I do."

"You're breaking into my laptop to find out about Brother Love?" Liv asked as her eyes caught the paused video on the screen.

Peyton raised her brows, her jaw tensed and she pursed her lips. "I don't think you want to compare secrets right now, Liv," Peyton warned her in a low voice. "Because you've been keeping some doozies."

"Peyton, I-"

"Save it. We have bigger problems and not enough time to discuss them," Peyton responded.

"If you need me to get rid of Blaine,' Liv began, but Peyton shook her head.

"No. Blaine needs to stay here, and I need him to think I still have amnesia," Peyton interjected, and Liv visibly balked at what Peyton was requesting. Peyton sank onto the mattress, her knees pressed tightly together and her arms crossed over her legs as she slouched forward. "I don't remember everything, but Angus has some kind of plan for Blaine," she continued, "Angus wanted to use me to get to him, but there's something more to it. I need a way of keeping Blaine close until Angus is taken care of... and I still need to figure some things out."

"How long have you been remembering?" Liv asked. Her spine relaxed at the sight of Peyton no longer looking ready to strike like an irate rattlesnake.

"Started this morning when I overheard part of your argument in the hall," Peyton said. "It's still coming back in pieces."

Liv closed her eyes for a moment and she crossed one arm over her midsection and held her other elbow. "Blaine knows that Angus left you alive as a sort of present to him, but Angus's message implied Blaine had to turn you. I think that's why he's so motivated to get his dad."

"I'm pretty sure I made that worse after the nightmare," Peyton groaned, "but he's more concerned with protecting me than taking the fight to Angus. That's why I need you to help me continue the amnesia shtick after the recheck on Monday. At the same time I'm worried about how I can help keep this city from falling apart during this crisis." She glanced at the door with a furtive lifting of her eyes before looking back down. "I'd better get back to my mom, and Blaine'll be out of the shower any minute now."

Peyton got up and started to head back to the living room. As she passed Liv, the petite zombie reached out and grabbed her in a hug that pinned Peyton's arms to her sides. After a moment, Peyton patted Liv on the back with a slow tapping of her fingers. They parted with a shared nod. Then Peyton glided back down the hall sparing a pensive glance towards the bathroom door as the howl of Blaine's hairdryer drowned out the melody he'd been humming, and Liv collected Ravi's shirt from the mattress before rushing off to the morgue.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> One of the popular fandom theories for what Blaine's grandfather had was ALS. I've explored other scenarios in previous fics, but I do like this theory too and wanted to use it this time.


	5. Things Said and Left Unsaid

Peyton awoke before dawn on Monday morning. With the door closed a perfect darkness filled the bedroom. The quiet rhythm of Blaine breathing sounded magnified by their surroundings, and she could feel him lying on his back beside her. She rolled over to face his direction, and she remembered watching him sleep on her couch with the early morning sun lighting up his platinum hair and warming his fair skin. _I wish I'd left the door open so the light could touch him this morning_ , Peyton thought. She imagined running her fingers through his hair with the golden dawn light catching between the strands. _I should have left the door open_ , her mind repeated.

She didn't really want to wake him anyhow, because once he woke the day would have to start. _If I screw this up, will he leave and get chewed up and swallowed by Angus?_ she worried. _Will I?_ She laid her cheek against his shoulder, feeling the soft cotton of his shirt against her skin. Now that Peyton understood why Blaine was holding back, she'd simply told him that she was going to go brush her teeth if he wanted to get changed for bed. She'd smiled when she'd returned to find him dressed in black and grey boxers and a black v-neck tee. In addition to Blaine wearing sleep clothes she'd also noticed his nails were the shortest she'd ever seen them and immaculately filed. She placed her hand over Blaine's while he slept and laced her fingers through his. Then she lay there, counting the beats of his heart until his 6:00 a.m. alarm went off.

Blaine fumbled for his phone in the dark, and once he'd turned off the alarm Peyton wrapped her arms around his neck, kissing him and running her fingers though his disheveled blond locks the way she'd longed to since she'd awakened. Blaine ran his thumb along the curl of her ear as he returned the kiss, and they lingered in each other's arms and kisses for a few minutes, hearts thumping with the elation of being together and twisting with the shared, silent fear that everything was about to end.

Blaine pulled back when their kisses began to become too heated, and Peyton trailed her knuckles across his cheek. "After the recheck this morning I should be cleared for a bit more _active_ fun," she said. She traced a spiral over his heart with her index finger. "Looking forward to it?" Peyton didn't normally go in for pillow talk, but she wanted a moment to pretend that everything was as simple as the fantasy they'd each been spinning for the past few days.

It took him a moment to respond. "Mhmm," Blaine purred. His fingers sought her hand again and curled around her palm, his thumb petting the backs of her fingers. "You know, if you're not careful, I might think you only want me for my body," he retorted. She could hear the humor in his voice and could picture the smirk on his lips.

"Oh?" She drew out the sound in false surprise and confusion. "What else would I want you for?"

Blaine laughed--a hearty chuckle that filled her with warmth. "Well, I was thinking about making breakfast this morning since you have an early appointment to get ready for." He chuckled again at Peyton's sound of delight. "I was thinking Eggs Benedict, a little fresh fruit... I might even make coffee."

The doctor had decided to work Peyton in as her first appointment of the day. Liv would drive her, but she needed to get ready early. She'd been expecting to just get something at the drive through after the recheck. Blaine's offer to send her out the door with a full breakfast made her want to kiss him again. He certainly wasn't skimping in his choice of breakfast for her either. She wondered if he was trying to cushion the blow for when she "learned" about the degree of amnesia he thought she still had or if it was just Blaine's attempt to create one last happy memory. Perhaps, this was his way of trying to definitively win the breakfast game.

"Your bid for World's Greatest Boyfriend is both noted and accepted!" she promised, and she brought her lips to his with the swift determination of an eagle striking from the air. They were still breathless from the kiss as they stumbled, blinking and shielding their eyes with their hands, into the bright living room.

While Peyton started her morning routine to get ready, Blaine swept about the kitchen--first slicing oranges into sunny circles on their plates before preparing bacon, English muffins, poached eggs, and a basic Hollandaise sauce. His time spent around the kitchen in Romero's had taught him a few tricks and cheats for timing everything to finish at the right moment.

Liv walked into the kitchen still in her robe and pajamas to grab a cup of coffee, and she eyed his work with due respect as he placed slices of bacon onto paper towels to drain and carefully slid eggs into a swirling pot of hot water to poach. After their perfunctory greetings her troubled eyes kept wandering to him as she fumbled for a mug and poured herself a cup of coffee, but she waited until after she'd finally had her first sip before she launched into what was on her mind. "I've been thinking it might be best to have the doctor on hand when I tell Peyton about the memories. There could be questions that she's better suited to answer," Liv lied. She eyed the number of dishes that Blaine was creating in the kitchen with a look of trepidation.

"I see," Blaine said. Frowning, he turned slightly away from the stove to face her. "Are you sure it's not better to tell her somewhere more private? Let her feel what she needs to without a stranger watching?"

"That should make for a fun blood pressure reading," Liv groaned. "You think I should tell her on the drive?"

Blaine shrugged and turned back to whisking his egg yolk mixture and butter together over a pot of steaming water. "Should I tell her before you go? Maybe I could jog her memory?"

Liv shook her head hard enough to set her hair flying in uneven layers like the twirling of a petticoat. "No," she said. "I've tried saying things to jog her memory. Even Clive tried. Probably best not to tell her everything all at once. I'll try to ease her into it--start with just the gap. Any personal stuff can wait until after the appointment."

Blaine tightened his lips, but he cocked his head in acquiescence. "Text me what the doctor says," Blaine requested. He pulled hot, buttered English muffins out of the oven where he'd been keeping them on warm. The hope that perhaps Peyton wouldn't be as angry as he'd feared raised its tiny voice. "If she has any questions for me," he began.

Liv planted her palms on the counter and rolled her eyes. "If Peyton has something to say or wants to find you, there'll be no stopping her--even if you wanted to."

Blaine nodded, his memory casting back to the time Peyton had stalked into Shady Plots to accuse him of tanking her case with his amnesia. Her eyes had been green fire, and she'd been relentless in her determination to push him into testifying again. He doubted that even knowing he'd been buried in a not so shallow grave with his throat slashed only days before would have stopped her.

"Get it while it's hot!" Blaine called towards the bedroom while he piled bacon and poached eggs atop the muffins and slathered each stack with spoonfuls of Hollandaise. He hid a bit of Filmore-Graves' brain paste under the eggs for himself and Liv, keeping their plates seperate from Peyton's.

He passed a plate to Liv before placing his and Peyton's in front of the stools where they liked to enjoy breakfast together. "Ooh! Another decisive entry in the breakfast game!" Peyton cheered, still wiggling her black skirt into place and putting in her earrings as she strode into the room. She'd applied base makeup and concealer to try to minimize the look of the black eyes, and had gone with a very natural look to avoid looking like she had cosmetics caked on over those bruises.

Blaine's face split into a beaming smile and his chest puffed up before her eyes as he preened under her approval. He leaned forward to collect the kiss she offered up as thanks. "I'm in it to win it," Blaine announced, pouring her a cup of coffee and taking a seat beside her at the counter. "Shame we couldn't have had mimosas with this," he opined.

"Now I know how to top you next time," she said with a cocky wink, and Blaine gripped at his heart as he accused her of plagiarism.

"Or she just intends to ply you with booze," Liv observed, and Peyton threw a napkin at her.

They ate with one eye on the clock. Then all too soon Peyton was rushing out the door with Liv so that they had time to park and still make her appointment, and Blaine was left alone with the dishes and the silence of an empty apartment. _So this is how it ends?_ he wondered. No tearful confrontations. No questions or attempts to explain. It was like waking from a dream. One moment it _was_ reality, and the next it was simply over--leaving a hole filled with numb disbelief behind. He took his time cleaning up. Then he set about getting washed and dressed before packing everything back into his luggage and slinking back to Romero's.

He arrived at the restaurant in time for a meeting with the staff before they began their prep work for the lunch crowd. With his father unlikely to show for his standing reservation Blaine expected the lunch trade to be slow, but at least any customers would be of the paying variety.

The familiar chaos of the kitchen felt like putting on a perfectly tailored suit as Blaine settled into the flow of rushing wait staff, the barking back and forth between the head chef and the kitchen workers scurrying to complete his orders, and his own role giving directions to ensure that the front of the house and the kitchen functioned together as needed. And what Blaine needed was the distraction of this busy routine.

A text alert broke his concentration as he was inventorying the alcohol to ensure that his bartenders weren't being too generous with the spirits. _Wonder if that's my death knell_ , he thought as he exhumed his phone from his jacket pocket. It was from Liv to tell him that the doctor suspected Peyton's memory loss was connected to her PTSD rather than to the injury itself. That was a relief at least. She'd sent a second text of warning to him with only one word: "Incoming."

The sound of the front door sent Blaine spinning around. _Did she send that text from the front porch?_ Blaine wondered, his mouth already open and preparing to speak when he realized that the crowd marching through his front door wasn't made up of any kind of casual visitors.

A troop of Filmore-Graves soldiers in deep blue uniforms spread out flanking either side of their thin faced leader as Chase Graves took several steps into the restaurant. He ruffled his short brown hair and fixed Blaine with a cool, officious glare as he bobbed his head in greeting. Major stepped out beside him, and the shuffling of the troops drew attention to the fact that they were all armed. "Mr. DeBeers," Chase intoned in a low monotone that was used to issuing orders. "We're here for your brains."

"Come for your pound of flesh? How Shakespearean! I don't recall taking out any loans or making any bets," Blaine mused.

"I'm referring to the stock in your refrigerator," Chase clarified. He broke into one of his "aww shucks" grins that, rather than hiding his joy at Blaine's woes, clearly stemmed from Chase's immense pleasure at any misfortune he could visit upon Blaine.

"Hold on just a minute here! I've paid you off ten times over. Our arrangement was for you to leave me alone to run my businesses. I performed my end of the bargain!" Blaine had indeed performed his end. It had taken him days, even using every contact and piece of leverage that he had, to track down Chase's renegade zombie maker. The front door burst open, and Liv and Peyton hurried inside with Clive Babbineaux in tow, but Blaine's glare didn't waver, his eyes locked on Chase Graves.

For a moment Peyton stared at the inside of the restaurant with awe. Then she reached into the pocket of Liv's maroon hoodie and pulled out Liv's phone. Peyton hit something on the screen a few times fiddling with something on it, and in a low hiss Liv asked her if she was sending a text at a time like this.

Chase planted his hands on his hips. "We're confiscating your brains, Mr. DeBeers. It's nothing personal. You will be compensated accordingly for your lost inventory," Chase assured Blaine, "but as of oh nine thirty hours your father and his flock hijacked our shipment of brains coming from the processing facility. The hungry zombies in this city are about to get a lot hungrier."

Blaine gulped. "Jesus, Pop!" he swore. He eyed Chase with a mistrustful glare. "Define accordingly."

"You'll be reimbursed for the price of your ingredients." They both knew that Blaine made a considerable markup above that price and had a number of staff to pay as well as other operating costs.

"You smug son of a bitch!" Blaine said. Chase's grin grew wider and more malicious, and Major stiffened, anticipating trouble. The soldiers' eyes were all trained on Major awaiting a signal.

"So that's why you oozed your way in here?" Liv demanded.

"Miss Moore, I see you're as charming as always, and, Miss Charles, it's good to see you're feeling better," Chase greeted. "Detective," he said, inclining his head towards Clive.

"You might want to revise that statement," Peyton warned Chase. "A video of you attempting to strong arm a local business owner has just been uploaded to the cloud. At any time and from any number of electronic devices... I could _share_ this video with every news outlet in the world, which isn't going to do anything to help your current image problem..."

Chase's smile vanished, and it was clear to everyone present that he was indeed revising his opinion of Peyton. "I would think blackmail wouldn't be in your wheelhouse, but I guess that goody-goody, clean politics image of yours isn't the whole picture." Chase eyed the phone still wrapped in Peyton's fingers, and Peyton passed the phone back to Liv.

"Though perhaps that casts a new light upon how the police 'accidentally' leaked the video that's been causing my people so much trouble," Chase continued. Clive scowled, and Peyton shot Liv and Clive a puzzled look. One of the soldiers made a move as if prepared to retrieve the phone from Liv, and Major made him stand down with a shake of his head. Then Major looked to Chase and tried to gauge Chase's intentions now that the plan had exploded on him.

"Oh, this isn't blackmail, Mr. Graves. This is a District Attorney offering you a plea deal. I think you're a smart enough leader to see that the very reasonable negotiation I am about to present is beneficial to everyone... and is actually better for you in the long-term than the deal you were about to make." Peyton thrust her chin forward in silent challenge and one brow flicked upwards for a fraction of a second. Blaine reminded himself never to get on the receiving end of one of Peyton's aggressive negotiations.

"I'm listening, but time is fleeting, Miss Charles."

"We can't afford to lose a single brain under the circumstances, but the current supply pipeline has a few... _leaks_ , shall we say?" Peyton began. She planted one hand on her hip, and she straightened her spine. "I propose that the city and Filmore-Graves hire Mister DeBeers and his restaurant to prepare and oversee the distribution of these brains to zombies with eligible meal cards. Police personnel are waiting outside." She turned to look at Clive, and he nodded. Clive had left the SWAT team at the ready outside in case Angus arrived. "One additional squad under Major Lillywhite alongside Mr. DeBeers and his people should be sufficient for safety and keeping order over the crowd. That frees up your men to scour New Seattle for your missing shipment and put a boogie on getting more brains delivered to this city--rather than needing to divert all your manpower to guard the brains through the time consuming processing, packaging, and distribution process."

Chase cast his cool gaze over each of them in turn. His cheeks hollowed out as he sucked on the inside of his mouth in thought, and the expression made his face appear strangely gaunt. Though perhaps it was only in Blaine's imagination, Chase Graves appeared tired, as though the position as the head of Filmore-Graves were wearing the man down one fine layer at a time. "And does Filmore-Graves get a boost to our public image from this plan?" he asked.

"Filmore-Graves working with the city and its citizens to help ensure that local zombies get fed," Peyton said. She swept one hand through the air as she spoke, as though painting the headline into being with the passing of her hand. "Not to mention whatever positive news you can create out of having your manpower freed up to be proactive..." _Let them find Angus holed up like a rat and take him down in a blaze of so many muzzle blasts that he needs sunglasses in his dying moments_ , Peyton thought.

"What if I don't believe you'd risk tearing the city apart with such a dangerous news story?"

"I wouldn't be tearing this city apart. I'd be giving them a common enemy to unite against," Peyton replied, and Chase drew his shoulders back. He believed her.

"Then I guess we have an agreement." He gave Major a pat on the shoulder before storming out the door with any men who weren't part of Major's squad. He didn't even look backwards, as though he couldn't put Romero's and all of them in his rearview fast enough.

"That was impressive," Liv breathed, and Peyton exhaled, closing her eyes and bringing one hand to her diaphragm as she breathed out. When Liv asked if she'd like to sit down, Peyton shook her head.

Peyton focused her attention on Blaine. "Can we have a moment alone, please?" she asked the others. She shifted from foot to foot, studying the floor and nervously peering at Liv, Clive, and the soldiers as Major lead them down to the kitchen. Blaine shoved his hands deep into his pockets and watched them traipse out before turning back to Peyton.

Neither said a word for a moment, their eyes cast downward as if fascinated by the toes of their shoes. Then Peyton took a deep fortifying breath and spoke first. "So it turns out I'm missing six months of memories..."

"Yeah," Blaine agreed in a slow breath. He raised his eyes to study her.

Peyton fidgeted with the black leather purse strap slung over her shoulder. Her fingers ran up and down the strap as if she were stroking a lucky coin before making a wish. "Liv said that we broke up... and that you're a zombie again..."

"Yeah," Blaine agreed again even more reluctantly. He waited for Peyton to do the talking, afraid of giving her more rope to hang him with.

"But you still came to the hospital when she asked...?" Peyton prompted.

"She said you needed me," Blaine said as though that explained everything. Peyton stared him in the eyes and jerked her face towards him in a tiny motion that begged him to say something more. Blaine froze in her gaze. He wanted to tell her everything, to somehow convey the tempest of emotions snarled inside his chest. All he managed to say was "I still owe you."

"Is that all?" Peyton asked. She wasn't sure what she expected him to say.

Blaine looked at her, his expression torn. Half of him wanted to confess everything, and the other half couldn't forget what happened the last time he'd tried. "You haven't asked why we broke up."

"Was it because you killed anyone?"

Blaine gave a quiet laugh of surprise. "No. It wasn't. It was because-"

Peyton raised her finger and placed it against his lips. "I don't think I'm ready to deal with anything else right now, and short of murder it's not going change what I'm about to ask." _Please, don't tell me_ , her mind begged. _Please, don't force me to make a decision I'm not ready to make._ Blaine bobbed his head in acknowledgement but made no move to take her finger from his lips.

She cradled his chin in her palm instead. "Between the injury, and the things your father is doing, and the chaos of being thrown into my job again... trying to keep the city together... it's like I've been thrown straight into the deep end."

"There's being thrown into the deep end, and then there's being thrown into the ocean," Blaine noted. His brows furrowed together, and his eyes glistened as he stared at her as though he could see right inside her to all the insecurity. And Peyton smiled in agreement. "You seem to know how to deal with the sharks though," Blaine said, remembering Chase Graves's sour expression as he left.

Peyton closed her eyes and bit her lips together before continuing. "Coming home to find your stuff gone... I know it's completely unfair of me to ask, but would you come back and stay with me like you have for the past few days?"

Blaine's brow furrowed, and he frowned in confusion. Before he could ask if he'd heard her correctly, she continued, "I don't know what happens when my memory comes back. At this rate I don't even know if the city will still be standing come morning, but being with you the past few days has been like being in a bubble where it's calm and safe. Even if it's selfish... even if it's completely selfish, I don't want to let go of that. I need it. I still need your help to get through this."

She remembered the pained expression on his face when she had called him "a sad, selfish, greedy man," and tears pricked at her eyes. _Maybe, I'm just as selfish... just as desperate and frightened of what happens when I can no longer hide behind this excuse to make it easy to be together... because I'd rather hurt us both than let him go_ , she thought.

Blaine closed his eyes tightly. He took her head between his palms and pressed his lips to her forehead--for the first time daring to touch the goose egg covering her forehead as though he desperately longed to "kiss it better." If Peyton had asked him to crawl a mile through landmines and broken glass right now he'd have done it for her. With his father still on the loose and causing mayhem Blaine also wanted to ensure Angus didn't get another chance at her. "I told you I still owe you," he said.

Peyton sighed in relief. "Thank you, Blaine," she whispered sincerely. She looked around them at the restaurant finally able to take in the monochrome wallpaper and the gilt partitions that had replaced the wall that once divided the front parlor from the showing room. The space seemed so much bigger now--even filled with so many tables. She wondered vaguely what had happened to the organ that had been in the lower area, but the place seemed more his own than it had before. "The decor seems more you now," she told him, and Blaine heaved a silent laugh as he agreed.

Blaine rubbed his knuckles against his chin for a moment, his bottom lip drawing tight over his teeth and his eyes filled with unease. "Thanks for the rescue back there," he said. He seemed to relax once the words were spoken, and Peyton swallowed trying not to choke on all the other words they were both still too afraid to say.

Peyton took a deep breath and steered them back to the crisis at hand, hoping they could deal with more personal matters later. "So on to the next big question: How many brains do you have and how far can you stretch them?" she asked. Blaine's eyes looked upwards, and he ran his tongue along his upper lip as he began to calculate furiously in his head.

***********************

"For the last time, the police department didn't leak that video to spite Filmore-Graves!" Liv screamed across the pale wooden prep table at a dubious Major. Her eyes narrowed, and a scowl etched itself deep into her features.

Major fumed back at her, his square jaw set like stone and his hands turning outwards in a flourish as he spread his arms. "Oh, please! It's not exactly a secret how much you dislike Chase, Liv," he responded.

"The man's a jackbooted fascist! I still wouldn't have leaked that video!"

"Oh? Does he keep the jackboots by the bedside? You see, _I_ wouldn't know," Major sniped, and Liv's head jerked backwards--her eyes wide with shock. Several of Major's soldiers tried to hide snickers behind their hands, and Major looked like a spider had walked up his spine as he realized what he'd just said. Liv's face grew red with anger, and Clive threw an arm in front of her to hold her back. "Liv, I'm sorry," Major began.

"Let's all just take a moment to calm down," Clive suggested, the lone voice of reason in the room. "The leak was purely accidental," Clive assured Major. "A very determined reporter gained access to our tech guy's office during lunch."

"How?" demanded a teenaged girl leaning against the wall with her arms crossed over her blue uniform. Her helmet slanted downwards shielding her petulant brown eyes. The ends of two raven black French braids peeked out the back of he the helmet just over her shoulders. Her voice took on a clear tone of challenge. "I thought the police would have at least some security."

"Jordan!" Major called, using her name itself an order to be quiet.

"She infiltrated his D&D campaign," Liv quipped, wrinkling her nose and raising one shoulder in a half shrug. Clive turned and glared at her. "What? You play without your halfling monk, you miss out on his ability to detect traps," Liv said. Clive rolled his eyes and frowned, and Major gave a pained look of understanding. From the stairs Blaine and Peyton looked to each other with eyebrows drawn in confusion.

"She managed to send the one file before being caught. Having that genie out of the bottle hasn't made our lives any easier either," Clive told them. "For all his bile against Filmore-Graves, it was City Hall that Brother Love targeted," he reminded them.

Peyton squirmed before catching herself and slamming a professional mask into place. Blaine watched her without comment, but quickly changed the subject. "I called Don E. He and Tanner are bringing over the brains from the Post. Crybaby Carl is coming down with some of our security guys too," Blaine announced.

"Please tell me the rest of your guys are a little more on the ball than Don E.," Major said. His pained eyes silently pleaded with Blaine.

Blaine took his time considering the matter, his mouth hanging open as though deferring the answer on his tongue and his eyes and expression changing as though each goon he considered had to his mind some fatal flaw that Major would find troublesome. He relished every second of Major's crestfallen and self-pitying reactions, as Major clearly wondered how he'd been saddled with this detail. "Relax," Blaine finally told him, pleased to see his jape had hit the mark. "My guys will be fine. Any insight on how--with an entire army at your disposal--you guys somehow managed to lose a big white truck full of brains?"

The young Filmore Graves soldiers in the room tensed and nearly snarled at Blaine, and Major laid his hand on the shoulder of one of his nearby soldiers to calm them. "Apparently, your dad sent one of his people undercover to work as one of our drivers. We don't know what happened to the other guard who was with him. He'd been with the company for years and had Chase's trust. We think he might be dead. Everybody's jumpy about who to trust right now, so I suggest you keep your guys on their toes."

Blaine pursed his lips, his mind whirring through the possibilities of what Angus could be planning. The news also went a long way to explain Chase Graves's exhausted appearance. "Traitors in your midst... that explains a few things."

Liv and Clive both snapped to attention as their cellphone alerts went off within seconds of each other. "Looks like we'll have to introduce you to our guys outside and go. We've got a body," Clive announced, looking up from his phone.

Peyton gave them a half frown. She waved goodbye at Liv and Clive. "I hope you guys can come back later. We could use all the help we can get. I'll text you the details just in case."

Liv leaned in and whispered something in Peyton's ear, as they hugged. Peyton smiled and nodded wishing Liv good luck. Then she patted Liv on the back before Liv broke away and jogged up the stairs after Clive.

Ushering the chef and kitchen staff to gather around, Blaine waited for Peyton to join them at the table before beginning. "During the Irish Potato Famine a French chef named Alexis Soyer invented a soup kitchen and was asked by the British government to go implement his idea in Ireland. His soup became known as Famine Soup, and today, Ladies and Gentlemen, that is going to serve as our inspiration. We're going to devise our own _Zombie_ Famine Soup" Blaine explained to his staff.

"The truck that was hijacked this morning contained a week's rations for how many zombies?" Peyton asked looking at Major.

Major stepped forward to join them at the table. "Two thousand," he replied.

Blaine frowned and let out a heavy breath. "One brain is enough to feed one zombie for a month or around 30 zombies for a day. Our combined stock from both restaurants is only 50 brains. That's enough to feed 1500 zombies for a day, but we're going to have to stretch that number," he explained.

"The way brain tubes are being watered down now, that might still be an improvement," Jordan ventured.

Peyton grimaced. That assessment only served to heighten her concerns that the city was sliding towards an inevitable disaster. "We're buying the city one day to find those brains. If they fail, things are going to get ugly real fast."

**********************

"I don't like how they're able to keep the details of what happened to themselves," Liv complained to Clive as they jostled down the stairs to the morgue. Over the past few days, Liv and Ravi had managed to get through their surplus of autopsies so that the morgue no longer looked like the fall out from a disaster movie. They no longer needed to thread their way through a maze of corpse-laden gurneys to enter the room. A whirring noise as though from a bonesaw stopped as they got further into the morgue, but there was no sign of Ravi. "News blackouts. Their own internal investigations. They control the entire zombie food supply, and they have a disturbing amount of control over the city."

"But you've got Andrew Boughlin and a medical examiner who will call you first when there's been a hit and run involving a speeding truck matching the description of the one stolen in this morning's heist," Ravi announced stepping out from the small kitchen at the back of the lab. In one hand he held a travel glass filled with a thick chocolate milkshake.

He had already stripped off his used labcoat and was dressed in a pair of jeans, an eggplant colored sweater, and a plum buttondown. "We're short on time before they find out and come for the brain themselves, but the good news is: my milkshake brings all the zombies to the yard." He extended his arm to Liv offering the waiting beverage to her. "I _could_ teach you, but... I'd have to charge." he added. Clive shook his head, but a smirk curved his lips.

"So this is a completely unknown brain with who knows what personality quirks?" Liv asked. She took the glass from him and sipped on it from the paper milkshake straw he'd included for her.

Ravi nodded with an excitement that bordered on obscene. "He was completely healthy before the accident. Other than that we're in uncharted brain territory on this one," he said. He brought his hands together, raising them in front of his face and hunching his shoulders forward. His broad, white smile and mischievous eyes sparkled. He clapped his fingers together in glee.

Ravi's wonder and excitement over each new brain inspired joy in Liv as well. He'd been the person who had encouraged her to begin solving murders with the police, the person who had helped her find her purpose as a zombie. He turned each new experience into an adventure--into something fun. He didn't just accept all the sudden changes and crazy quirks that came to her under the influence of a new brain, he looked forward to them, and in the event of a bad brain he helped her fix anything that had been broken during her time on it. Liv had always been a firm believer in the advice that the best relationships were built upon friendship, and Ravi was her closest friend, the person she could trust with anything and with whom she looked forward to sharing everything--from their latest television obsessions to their deepest secrets.

"Mmmm. You do make a mean milkshake," Liv said. She took another sip, grateful that he'd already thought ahead to the time crunch they were facing.

"The fastest way to a woman's heart-" he began.

"Was technically the time you performed open heart surgery on me to remove a bullet," Liv broke in, smiling at the unexpected happiness that memory brought, and Ravi bowed his head in concession as he pursed his lips.

"True, but when I'm not going directly through the ribcage I'd like to think that my many talents, sparkling personality, and devillish good looks play a role," Ravi told her, and Liv laughed and assured him they did.

"So what else do we know about the victim?" Clive asked, as they followed Ravi over to the computer where the information and a few of the man's bagged personal effects sat alongside the keyboard.

Ravi grabbed a clipboard from next to the lab computer and quickly read off what information he had about the victim. "Andrew Boughlin, age 36, single, occupation unknown. Witnesses reported him sitting at an outdoor table at a coffee shop named Bean There Coffeeshop. He was mostly on his phone. When the speeding truck entered the intersection Mr. Boughlin attempted to capture the scene with his phone. Witnesses said that the truck seemed to swerve to hit him as it made a wide turn through the corner."

"FG will probably show up to take everything before we have a chance to recover anything from the phone," Clive said. His frustration filtered into his voice, and he ground his jaw on one side unconsciously.

Ravi bit the inside of his cheek, and he stroked his beard. "About that," he began in a strained voice. The sound of footsteps in the doorway of the morgue caught their attention, and all eyes turned to the new arrival, a pale man with jaw length hair and heavy black eyeliner.

"Am I late?" Vampire Steve asked, and Ravi gave them a smile that looked painful. Steve lingered in the doorway uncertain of whether to enter or to wait. "So actual fieldwork..." Steve said with a trace of awe. His long, black trench coat swayed against his legs as he shifted under their surprised gazes. "I just want you all to know that I'm really excited that you're giving me a chance to prove myself after what happened, and I won't let you down."

Clive turned to Ravi with a petulant scowl but said nothing as he awaited an explanation. Having once been tricked by the same reporter using a similar ploy, Ravi had a certain sympathy for Steve, but there were other practical reasons behind this plan. "Did you have any luck?" Ravi asked Steve, and Steve straightened as he stared back at Ravi.

"I've dealt with far more damaged devices, though I have to give him props on at least having some half-decent security. I was able to clone the data for us," Vampire Steve announced producing a phone that contained the cloned data from his pocket. "He was doing a considerable amount of map searches and setting GPS destinations."

"So you've got all his searches and destinations on that phone?" Liv asked.

"I'm still decoding some of it and programming it into my GPS app, but yeah. I thought that was obvious," Steve answered. He flipped his hands over in the world's tiniest shrug and looked to Liv with genuine befuddlement.

Ravi turned to Clive hungry for his "atta boy," and Clive clapped him on the shoulder in congratulations. "Nicely played," Clive told them, and Ravi and Steve both brightened under his gruff praise.

"Then let's not waste our head start," Liv suggested. She made a quick detour into Ravi's office, digging something out of Ravi's bottom right desk drawer. Then she lead them up the steps and off to Clive's waiting car so they could start by checking out the scene of the crime and try to trigger whatever memories this brain held.


	6. Brains from Heaven

The tables outside Bean There Coffeeshop still lay turned over, mangled, and in disarray behind the police tape barrier that blocked off most of the street corner. The intersection lights flashed intermittently as a warning, the colorful lights contrasting sharply against the white-grey sky that promised rain, and an officer directed traffic manually through the partially sectioned off lanes. The tire treads of a barely controlled highspeed turn marred the sidewalk, like an open wound dragging blood across the concrete and over the twisted wreck of a glossy black painted metal cafe chair.

Clive, Liv, Ravi, and Steve trod up to the yellow tape taking in the scene of devastation. The thoroughfare had been reopened to traffic, but the outdoor section of the coffeehouse and a section of the sidewalk would remain closed until forensics finished their business and a cleaning crew arrived and dealt with the remaining blood. _Unless the rain beats them to it_ , Liv thought with a morose twinge. Liv's throat tightened when she noticed a trio of FG soldiers just inside the coffeeshop attempting to speak with the owners and employees.

"I guess that means interviewing the owners is off the table," bemoaned Ravi. He looked both directions. Then he dropped his voice and leaned towards Steve. "Have you managed to recover any video of the incident from his phone?"

Steve raised one eyebrow and straightened. He spoke from the near corner of his mouth as though that would somehow make their conversation more private. "Um... He never recorded any video of the hit and run..." Steve replied.

The other three shared a look of confusion. "But according to the reports from people on the street he was standing there, recording it, and following the truck with his phone," Ravi protested. "If he wasn't recording video of the truck, what was he doing?"

A honking horn from a driver seriously displeased at a sudden jaywalker sent them all spinning towards the sound. Liv snapped to attention, her eyes going sightless as her mind shifted into a zombie vision. Ravi gave a little fist pump and a whispered cheer. Clive stared at Liv with his notebook at the ready, waiting for her to come out of the vision. Steve ignored the others and dug through the cloned data on his phone.

Liv gasped back to the present just as Steve cracked a smile at what he'd found. "Our victim had been tracking Brother Love's cult. He was trying to figure out where the truck was going -- if its route might lead to one of the locations he'd been investigating," Liv announced.

"He had three potential locations pinned," Steve added, "and a number of others around the city."

"So our guy knew about the brain heist and was investigating before it even happened?" Clive asked. His features pulled tight with confusion, and he pinched his lower lip between the knuckle of his forefinger and the pad of his thumb as he pondered the situation.

"No," Liv said. "He didn't know anything about the heist. He recognized the person driving the truck. He just didn't realize until too late that the driver recognized him too."

"So how did he know the driver?" Clive wondered aloud. Liv shrugged.

"I can take us to his pinned destinations," Vampire Steve offered. "We can scope things out, and with any luck the stolen brain tubes might still be there."

Ravi rested his hand against Liv's lower back as they headed back towards Clive's car, where Steve had already called shotgun again. "So mysterious," Ravi observed. His eyes gleamed with feverish excitement, his natural curiosity having taken hold. "What kind of person would know enough to start investigating a killer cult on their own... potentially before they strike? Oooh! Could he have been seeking vigilante justice after City Hall? Was he some kind of detective? I feel like you might have eaten super spy brain or something."

"I don't feel like James Bond, but it's a mystery all right," Liv said. She tensed one cheek, as she thought back to the vision she'd just had. "And just before he died, Andrew Boughlin called out for someone. He cried out for someone named Julie."

***********************

Under the shelter of waving white plastic canopies a row of temporary tables covered with white table cloths stood at one end of the cobblestone paved square that had been dubbed New Seattle Square. Tall buildings of glass and steel girded the edges of the small pubic space like a protective shield along three sides. A modern waterfall wall fountain and rows of young trees normally added a touch of serenity to the downtown oasis where small groups of people milled around to escape the hectic flow around them. Today, however, orderly lines of people waited in queues that stretched across the plaza while at the entrance to the park armed soldiers lead by Major guided them and maintained order. SWAT members patrolled with restless energy, looking for suspicious behaviors in the crowd or signs of shooters perched in any of the high buildings surrounding them. The crowd itself stretched down the sidewalk.

They had announced all over television and radio the use of a special feeding zone for the districts normally covered by the stolen truck to tide zombies over until normal shipments could resume tomorrow, and the turnout had been high. Employers and schools had even allowed special dispensation for affected zombies to be allowed to stand in line for their rations. Local news crews were still mingling with the crowd of zombies, interviewing them about everything from how long they'd been waiting to their feelings about Filmore-Graves and their reactions to the food.

"It's simple supply and demand, man!" Don E. had protested upon arriving with Carl and the supply of brains from the Post. "When the demand goes up, so should our prices. All this humanitarian, zombies helping zombies crap is nonsense." He'd huffed and puffed and complained nonstop throughout the day, and Blaine had told Peyton that it was probably better to just let Don E. get it all out of his system before service opened.

They'd given him a wide berth throughout the afternoon, and whatever venom still filled him he eventually kept to himself. Standing behind a large pot of soup, Don E. was all smiles and a consummate salesman as he joshed with people and ladled out carefully measured portions of soup. "Way better than eating paste from a tube, right? You should stop by The Scratching Post sometime for a real meal. The stuff we can do there or at Romero's is amazeballs. The best meals you've had since you were turned!"

"Here you go," Peyton told a tired looking, young mother in a white peacoat and purple scarf as she handed the woman a bowl. Two zombie children dashed around the woman's legs, heedless of the bowls waiting for them on the table or the danger of spilling the limited food supply. Peyton winced as her mind played out the scenario. "Do you need a hand? We have a seating area for-"

"Tanner!" Blaine called, cocking his head in the direction of the mother and her children before Peyton even finished. She caught Blaine checking on her from the corner of his eyes. Then he was momentarily blocked from view as Tanner gave a nod and scurried to grab the two children's paper bowls and lead the rambunctious family over to an open bench.

Peyton took the opportunity to roll her neck and stretch her shoulders out. They'd been on their feet for hours serving, while other members of Blaine's staff ferried large pots of hot soup over from the restaurant. Peyton was thankful that she'd changed into jeans and a sweater, and she couldn't imagine how sore and cold her feet would have been if she hadn't changed out of her high heels. Her feet were already dog tired in her trainers.

She nearly wiped the back of her gloved hand across her brow until the warning sound of Blaine clearing his throat reminded her that the soup she'd been ladling contained scotch bonnnet peppers in the spicy vegetable brain broth. Blaine had already warned her that getting anything in her eyes could lead to the world's most dangerous game of spot the human if Angus were to get wind of it.

"Enjoy!" Blaine told the older couple in front of him as he handed them their bowls before turning to Peyton. "If the politics thing doesn't work out for you, you're always welcome at Romero's," he joked.

She grinned despite the exhaustion. "I feel like I'm barely keeping up now," she admitted. She knew Blaine had been silently picking up the slack for her for the last half hour, but she was hoping that a second wind would kick in any time now.

"You're four days out of the hospital and we've been at this for hours already. Nobody expects you to be Olympics ready," Blaine reminded her, though he was fairly certain that was exactly what Peyton expected of herself. "If you need a break there's a chair back there." He despaired of her actually taking his advice, but he figured that if she didn't he could always demand she take a break in another fifteen minutes.

Raised voices broke out, and the motion of a scuffle drew their attention, freezing them on the spot while a SWAT officer and Crybaby Carl moved to intervene. Blaine edged forward, and his hand hovered near his jacket front prepared to draw. Don and Tanner stood ready at Peyton's other side and behind her as though she were surrounded by her own troop of personal guards. She nearly giggled at the surreality of three zombie gangsters jumping in to protect her at the first sign of trouble, but after everything she'd just been through she knew what danger could be lurking anywhere in the crowd.

Then Carl and the officer separated the two feuding men, and it was as if it had never happened. Blaine picked up the next bowl and began to ladle more soup into it for a burly man in a leather jacket, who inhaled the aroma with great appreciation. Don E. was leaning so far over the table to flirt with a pretty young woman in a leopard skirt that Peyton thought he might fall over, and Tanner returned to his own station at the far end of the table as though he'd never so much as paused.

The grey afternoon ticked on -- one stranger's face giving way to the next until the process became mechanical, one zombie moving happily away from the head of the line to be replaced by the next hungry face like the cogs of a massive clockwork wheel counting off the seconds. The ever looming rainclouds broke open, first a drizzle and then a thin, cold rain that left their canopied areas overflowing with diners huddling together to protect their meals.

The crowds finally stopped swelling, but the hours of waiting and the cold rain took their toll on those still waiting. More disagreements broke out, and Blaine and Don E. glanced back and forth communicating their displeasure at the situation through looks until they seemed to reach a consensus from what Peyton could tell. Blaine reached below the table to grab the walkie-talkie Major had given him. "Hey, G.I. Joe!" he called into the microphone.

After a moment the device crackled to life in his hand. "What do you want, Blaine?" Major pitched back through the speaker. He'd asked Blaine to use the standard walkie-talkie lingo and codes, but they both knew Blaine would ignore the request. Major didn't even bother trying to correct him.

"You guys still busy over there sorting the crowd when they hit the park?" Blaine asked.

"It's finally slowing down," Major replied. "What'cha need?"

"Starting to get some disturbances in the crowd. Think you could you take a couple of your grunts off the gates and help keep some peace?" Blaine's eyes scanned the waiting zombies noting how many SWAT officers and how many of his own goons were currently engaged. He followed Peyton's eyeline to a couple of children seeking shelter under one of the trees. _We need to get through the last of this crowd before the rain causes too much trouble_ , he thought.

"Will do. Over and out," Major told him.

The sound of people calling out rang out from across the courtyard, catching everyone off-guard. Blaine strained his neck to see what was happening. More voices joined in, and as the commotion drew nearer they realized that the noises were joyful and people were cheering about something.

Something soft plopped against the cobblestones in front of their tent. More strange plopping sounds followed as folks gawked in confusion. A little girl with white hair down to her knees reached out with her hand, and her forest green eyes lit with excitement as a small pinkish cube bounced into her palm. "It's raining brains!" the girl cried out, and the zombies around her all reached out too, quickly confirming the truth for themselves. Some reached around themselves trying to catch falling bits of brain from the sky while others rushed to pluck little chunks of brain off the ground. Somebody called out, "It's a miracle!"

"Oh crapsicles," Blaine muttered to himself. "Stay here," he told Peyton, grabbing her by the shoulders and pushing her closer to Don E., who laid a protective hand on her arm. Blaine stepped out of the tent and looked up to ascertain what could be happening. He reached out one palm catching a couple of hunks of brain for himself, and his eyes hardened as they darted from rooftop to rooftop. He couldn't see anybody up there, but he knew there had to be.

The little girl with the long hair ran forward and hugged Blaine around the legs. "Thank you! Thank you! The man said you'd make a miracle happen," she squealed, and eyes began turning uncomfortably towards him.

"Woah... I just made the soup," Blaine said. His wide eyes filled with alarm as more zombies began to converge upon him. He unlocked her grip from around his thighs so he could escape back under the safety and anonymity of the canopy. Then he practically dove for the walkie-talkie, barking into it, "Major!"

"Yeah, I know it's raining brains," Major barked back at him.

"You already have teams enroute to the rooftops?" Blaine asked, his eyes returning to studying the edges of the roofs with concern.

"Yeah, we've got mixed teams with SWAT investigating and people guarding the entrances. Just sit tight and keep feeding those zombies," Major said. Then the radio went silent.

"It doesn't make any sense," Peyton said in a soft voice as she stared at the little cubes of brain that Blaine still clutched in one hand. "You dad stole brain tubes, but this isn't paste," she mused, "so where did these chunks come from?"

Blaine closed his eyes and swallowed as his mind connected the pieces. He knew any moment Peyton would reach the same conclusion, and he dropped the brain onto the table as though it burned his skin. "Don E., take over for a minute, and make sure everyone gets fed," he instructed, before leading Peyton to the folding chair. "It's time you took a break. Have a seat," Blaine said.

Peyton looked back to the pieces of human brain that Blaine had left on the white tablecloth. "Are those...?" She couldn't bring herself to finish the sentence.

Blaine helped her into the chair, and he knelt beside her as she stared at him in shock. "Where else would Dad have gotten a large number of unprocessed human brains? They have to be from City Hall," he confirmed.

Don's head jerked around to stare at them as though someone had pulled a giant leash. His upper lip curled slightly as his eyes flitted back to the courtyard and up to the edges of the roofs. "Come and get it!" he called, tapping the ladle against the side of the pot to get the attention of the nearby zombies back onto the feedzone and away from any falling cerebral matter.

Peyton watched as a couple of zombies chewed on the chunks of brain they had collected, laughing and completely unaware of the origin of their snack. The few memories of the attack that she had recovered replayed in her head, and an uncontrollable wave of horror and nausea rose from her stomach. She remembered the screams and chaos. She remembered looking into the flaming eyes of Blaine's father and knowing she was about to die. She saw familiar faces frozen in their dying screams, blood painting their foreheads and running into their blank eyes. The remembered smells of gore and death filled her nostrils. Peyton covered her mouth and ran to find somewhere private to be sick.

The portable toilets were occupied, so she tried to hide behind the the green and white plastic stalls while dry heaving violently and struggling to hold her hair back with one hand. She hadn't heard Blaine follow, but suddenly she heard a rustle of fabric and a shadow covered her. She looked up to see Blaine holding his coat over her to block out the rain. One end of the coat draped across his head and shoulders while he held out the rest above her with one arm. His other arm reached towards her. "Hair?" he suggested, and she allowed him to take over holding the loosely twisted tail of her hair while her body continued to retch.

Peyton had skipped lunch, so there was nothing in her stomach to come up. When she was done trying, Blaine pulled her under the nearest overhang from one of the buildings and held her tightly, one hand cupping the back of her head and the other absently rubbing and patting her back as they stood there. "I'm so sorry, Love." He knew the words were insufficient. _If there are any memories she never recovers, let those be the ones_ , he thought. He draped his coat over her shoulders. "We need to get you out of the rain and someplace warm," Blaine told her.

Peyton shook her head. "I need to see this through," she said. She wanted to ensure that they finished what they had begun, that everyone who needed got fed, and there was no way she was leaving Blaine alone here now that Angus had made a move. She needed to know what Angus was up to if she had any hope of helping to block his next move.

Above them the first teams spilled onto the rooftops, guns ready as they checked behind air conditioners and metal ducts for hostile zombies. One by one the groups came up empty, the roofs having been deserted before they could get up there. The teams at the doors didn't fare any better, unable to find any trace of brains hidden on anyone exiting the buildings. Major scanned the crowd for any sign of Angus or any recognizable faces from his one previous tangle with the Triple Cross Church. "Dammit!" he swore as more rooftop teams checked in with their lack of results. He only hoped that top to bottom searches of the buildings would turn up something.

After making sure his men had their orders based on the latest check-ins Major turned to find Blaine and Peyton strolling towards him under the wide overhang of the largest office building. Blaine's jacket hung over Peyton's shoulders, and they both scanned the crowd with suspicious eyes that told him they were possibly even more on guard than his troops for Angus and the Triple Cross Church. Peyton gave Major a tiny wave when she noticed him watching them, and she and Blaine steered towards him through the crowd.

"What's the good word?" Blaine asked as they drew near.

"No joy so far," Major replied. "We have teams on the front doors, but most of your dad's followers would have no trouble blending into the crowd. I'm sure they got rid of all the brains they had on them already, but we're checking people at the door and searching to see if anything was left in the trash. We'll have our guys go over video surveillance once we get access to it."

"We need to deal with the press too," Peyton said. She eyed the crowd where a camera crew was holding an interview with a very animated zombie couple who kept gesturing towards the sky while they spoke--clearly talking about the brain incident. "We're going to have to do as much damage control as possible, and we need to be careful. I'm a survivor from City Hall, and Blaine is the son of the city's most wanted. There's eighty scandals they could spin from that alone." She paced back and forth in deep thought.

Blaine and Major watched her. "Thanks for pulling strings at the hospital for me the other night," Blaine told him in a hushed tone.

"Didn't do it for you," Major shrugged easily. The history of animosity between the two men had evolved into a reluctant understanding of one another. While Blaine and Liv could put aside their animosity for Peyton's sake, Major was the closest Blaine had to an almost friend in the group. They would never become actual friends, but they had developed a respect for one another's abilities during their increasing experiences working together, and they had begun to engage in brief but amicable chats where they compared notes on their lives--usually commiserating on the incompetence of those working for them.

"I know," Blaine replied. He rubbed his fingers together in the cold, and he stole a cautious glance at Major. "Is it killing you too, being on the sidelines? I feel like I should be tracking down my dad instead of waiting around for somebody else to find him and the stolen brains."

Major nearly choked on a laugh. "Big surprise there!" he scoffed, and Blaine pursed his lips and nodded in agreement. Major tilted his head towards Blaine while they continued to scan the crowd and watch Peyton planning. "You've gotta admit trusting people is not your strong suit. Add in your daddy issues and need to make everything about yourself, and it's like saying water is wet." Major cocked a knowledgeable eyebrow as he brought his years as a counselor to bear.

Blaine snorted. "So... that a yes?"

"Yeah. I'm not keen on playing defense while your dad does whatever the hell he wants either," Major agreed.

************************

"This is the place," Steve confirmed looking up from his phone at the squat, red brick building just down the street from them. The four of them were seated in Clive's car on the opposite side of the road, where they studied the entrances to the building--a large garage door, a metal door at the front, and a second metal door along the side atop a few stairs. A zombie with a white crew cut and tan overalls came out the side door to take a smoke break, and Clive leaned across the front seat and popped open the glove box, removing a pair of binoculars. "You know, if it were dark out, I'd be able to see what was going on over there even without those. My night vision acuity is _intense_ ," Steve told them.

Ravi sucked air in through his teeth as he debated with himself whether or not to ask Steve about that tidbit. Liv, meanwhile, fixated on the warehouse in question as though she'd never heard. _Super spy brain_ , Ravi thought again watching her, and the idea sent a frisson of excitement through him. "So is that like a vampire thing?" Ravi asked Steve.

"It might just be an effect of my inner darkness bleeding through, ...or it could be a result of years of shunning the light plus my natural fondness for carrots." Steve ruminated aloud. He looked back over his shoulder into the backseat.

"We only have one shot at this. If we move on the location and get it wrong, then they'll have everything moved and locked down before we get another chance at this. We need to know what is inside that building. I need to sneak in there to do reconnaissance," Liv announced.

"If that building is filled with Triple Cross followers that's going to be dangerous," Clive warned her. He did his best to get a closer look at the lock on the side door and the zombie sitting on the steps and puffing away on a vape pen. The zombie pulled a brain tube out of his chest pocket, snacking between inhales. "Door uses a keypad lock," he said, staring intently at the lock in question.

"How are you even going to get inside?" Ravi asked.

"These guys would be even more on guard against anyone who isn't clearly a zombie, so I need to do this alone," Liv told them. Clive and Ravi met one another's eyes, clearly uneasy about this proclamation but unable to argue with Liv's assessment. "Don't worry. I have a plan and a secret weapon," she added digging into her jacket pocket. She pulled out the metal item she had retrieved from Ravi's desk drawer and held it up for everyone in the car to see.

Ravi's eyes widened in recognition. "Jenko's hypodermic gun?" Ravi's expression hit the midway point between worried and impressed. "We know it's highly effective against zombies, ...but what if they have _real_ guns?"

"The first step is to get in there. Steve, can you hack the keypad on that door?" she asked, and Steve nodded, opening his trenchcoat enough to produce his code hacking device.

Clive goggled at the sight. "You brought your passcode hacker?" he asked in disbelief.

"Ravi said to come prepared for anything," Steve told him. His eyes darted from side to side as though he feared someone could be eavesdropping on them before he admitted, "I have like twenty pounds of gear packed into this coat." Clive's demanding stare switched to Ravi, and Ravi shrugged in return.

"Wait for my signal, then come hack that door for me," Liv instructed. She turned her attention to Ravi and Clive. "I'm going to leave a way in for you. If I'm not out in ten minutes, come in after me," Liv said. With that she palmed the gun full of tranquilizer and slipped out the door with a waggle of her eyebrows.

She crossed the street and hunched in on herself as she strode down the deserted sidewalk. She turned down the side alley brightening at the sight of the smoking zombie and striking up a conversation. Ravi could see her gesture at the main street as though asking for directions, and when the zombie turned toward the main street and started gesturing with his hands while answering, Liv pressed the gun to his neck and shot him full of tranquilizer. The man toppled to the black asphalt like a dropped puppet.

Clive averted his eyes trying to block the sight of what Liv was doing by shielding his view with one hand for that little extra degree of deniability. "I am not seeing this. I'm not seeing any of this. If that truck isn't here, we are _so_ boned," Clive groaned. Liv waved at them.

As Steve scooted out of the front seat to follow her, Ravi slung open his door and extended one long leg towards the sidewalk too. "He should be fine, but I'm going to help move his body out of the way before anyone comes along," Ravi explained as Clive gave him a surprised look. Ravi ruffled his hair as he crossed the road, and his long strides carried him to Liv's side before Steve was even halfway there.

"What are you doing?!" Liv demanded through gritted teeth, and Ravi bent down to wrap the unconscious zombie's arm around his shoulders as though helping a drunken friend to find a place to throw up in the alleyway. He deposited the brawny zombie behind a pile of garbage bags, so the man sat against the opposing building, hidden from the street.

His eyes met Liv's, and she could see the worry and determination in them. "If you're going in there we don't want anybody to come along, see this guy unconscious, and raise the alarm," he told her. Liv's protest that she could have managed it died on her lips as she looked into Ravi's gentle eyes.

He took her hand and lead her up the steps by the door. "I also realized I could be useful in creating a distraction in case anyone comes along," he added. He placed his hands under Liv's arms and lifted her as though she weighed nothing more than a child. He seated her upon the railing of the small stoop, standing between her knees as though they were simply a necking couple looking for a secluded spot. He blocked the view of the door with their bodies, while Steve sat on the steps and plugged his device into the number pad. Ravi watched the street from over Liv's shoulder and let his lips brush her ear as he said, "Besides, when have we ever missed out on a chance to play a couple undercover?"

Liv drapped her arms around his shoulders. "Yeah. At first after I got turned I thought of that part of my life as over. I tried to think of anyone human as off the dating menu, but every chance we got I leapt at the opportunity to pretend I was your girlfriend. I should have figured out what that meant sooner." She rested her head against his shoulder and peeked at how Steve's task was coming behind them. She could see Steve roll his eyes as his device ran through the potential keycodes.

Ravi traced his hands up and down the sides of her waist. He stared at a couple of young men in hoodies and beanies who were jostling each other and making jokes as they carried their skateboards past the garage. He exhaled and relaxed as they passed the alley without a glance. "If we'd kissed during one of those outings, I wonder how much sooner I might have thought of making a vaccine," he pondered with a chuckle.

A cackle of triumph from Steve made them both turn their heads to look. "Gotcha!" he growled at the lock. He looked up at them. "Didn't even deserve to be called a lock," he told them, turning the knob easily. He held the door slightly ajar as he disconnected the wires he had plugged into the electronic lock.

"Guess that's our cue," Liv said. She hopped off the railing as Ravi took a step back. She headed back down the steps and grabbed a piece of wood broken off one of the wooden palettes stacked against the wall of the building so she could prop the door open. She thanked Steve as she took the door from him, and he nodded as he glided past her back towards Clive's waiting car. After placing the wood in the doorway, Liv paused just inside the door to have a last word with Ravi.

Ravi pressed his lips together. "Be careful in there," he said. Before Liv could respond the door at the other end of the office opened, and a zombie dressed in a Filmore Graves uniform with an open jacket that revealed a death metal tee shirt underneath entered holding his phone out as he relayed a message about a change in plans. _That's not the standard uniform_ , Liv thought in the split second before her body reacted on its own.

As the man looked up from his cellphone and noticed her, Liv ran full tilt across the room at him. Her fist connected with his throat in a blow that not only prevented him from being able to cry out but also would have killed a human. She swept his legs, hitting the back of his knees in a smooth motion that sent him straight to the slick, painted concrete floor of the office, and Liv flung herself onto his chest as she pressed the hypodermic gun into his throat and pumped him full of the chemicals that would send him straight to dreamland.

She looked up to see Ravi holding the door wide open and watching agape. His lips tightened into a small "o" of amazement, and his eyes burned as they raked over her. "Wow," he breathed. He broke into a grin, and he hovered in the doorway loathe to leave after seeing Liv in action. "We have got to find out what this guy was. This might be the coolest brain since magician brain," he told her.

Liv rose to stand with inhuman grace, her spine rolling straight in a dancer-like motion as she came to her feet, and Ravi swallowed hard. Liv took a deep breath as the implications of what she had just done washed over her. She turned her hand over and curled her fingers, beckoning Ravi to join her. She held out the handle of the hypogun to him, now that she knew she could be her own weapon. "Just in case," she told him, as his fingers wrapped around the pommel.

Ravi took the gun. He stared at it in his hand as though he were reading the epithet on a tombstone. Liv understood why it had been tucked into the back of a seldom used desk drawer where he didn't have to look at it. Ravi's fight for their lives against Jenko had been one of the most traumatic incidents of his life. At heart, Ravi was a healer--a goal he and Liv shared. "They're zombies. It won't kill them," she reassured him, and Ravi nodded.

Liv opened the inside door just a crack and peeked into the hallway, as Ravi made his way to stand at her elbow. Nothing tripped her warning senses--no signs or sounds of anyone moving outside. She edged through the door; and, noticing an open office with an empty chair in the doorway at the end of the hall, she followed the wall towards the room in question. Drawing closer she saw blood drops speckling the floor around the chair. The remains of sliced ropes lay behind the wooden chair. _These people are dangerous_ , Liv thought as she took in the scene.

Liv went rigid her eyes wide but unseeing. Her mind flashed to another cramped room, where a young woman with dark brown hair and pale blue eyes that framed a pallid, heart-shaped face stared back like a frightened rabbit on the verge of flight. "Thank you for meeting with me, Julie. Your family is very worried about you after what happened yesterday." The cheap hotel room around them seemed even smaller in the incandescent lighting that barely penetrated the shadows cast by the drawn, brocade curtains.

"I wasn't involved in that," Julie replied, shaking her head, her eyes wide and brimming with tears. She looked over her shoulder, jumping at the slightest sound outside the room.

"Your mother said you used to stand up for your little brother when he was bullied in school," Andrew Boughlin said. "She said the young woman she knows would be horrified by what happened at City Hall, and she's terrified that these people are too dangerous for you to walk away without help." He stooped slightly, trying to make his considerable height and broad, muscled frame less intimidating as he sought to reassure her that he was here to help her. "Your family loves you, and we all just want to help you."

Julie sniffled, and Liv decided the girl couldn't have been more than nineteen at the most. "After I was released from the hospital, my family was so happy at first that I'd survived the Aleutian flu--even if it meant I was a zombie now." Her lower lip wobbled, and large tears rolled down her round, pink cheeks as she continued, "Then the harrassment started. Graffiti on our house. Dead things left on our lawn. The bullies targetting Toby got ten times worse. I don't know what to do, but i can't destroy their lives any more than I already have." She backed away as she spoke, and reaching a breaking point she turned and opened the door to flee.

Andrew Boughlin rushed to follow. "Your family doesn't feel you destroyed anything. They love you and want you home safe... enough to hire help," Andrew called after her as she sprinted down the narrow hallway outside the room. A scuffling sound drew his attention to a shadowy doorway, where Liv recognized the cold grey eyes and thick features of the man who had been driving the stolen truck in her last vision.

"Liv?" Ravi called in a whisper when she suddenly froze. He peered past her into the room beyond to see what had stopped her. "Yeah, this isn't good timing," Ravi muttered to himself as he realized Liv was in the midst of a zombie vision. Ravi heard footsteps approaching from the front of the building, and he hurried to conceal himself just inside the lip of the hall hoping the angle of the new interloper's approach might temporarily shield him from detection. With Liv completely exposed and insensate in the middle of the hallway, Ravi needed to act fast. He held the injection gun at the ready alongside his head as he pressed himself against the wall and breathed in and out rapidly as he prepared to attack the stranger.

"Oi, Liam!" shouted a deep, smooth voice. A zombie with short, brownish black hair and grey eyes slung himself inside the hallway. This man reacted faster than his his predecessors, noticing Liv immediately and Ravi a split second later, but Ravi was ready.

Before the man could even finish his initial shout of surprise, Ravi launched his knee full-force into the zombie's solar plexus, and--as the man bent forward from the force--Ravi jammed the gun into the man's throat and yanked on the trigger for the hypodermic.

The whole thing was over in the matter of a couple seconds, and Ravi looked up from the man's prone form to see Liv standing beside him over the unconscious zombie. They both looked around, on guard in case the racket had alerted any other zombies lurking in the building. When nobody came, Liv's shoulders relaxed, and Ravi let out a breath of relief. She placed a comforting hand on his arm, as he calmed himself. "You did great," she said. With a nod, they headed into the garage at the front of the building. "That was the driver," Liv told Ravi, having recognized the man's distinctive features in the moment she'd come back to herself.

The hallway opened up to a large open room filled with metal shelves filled with stacks of sealed cardboard boxes. On the other side of the shelves sat an open garage area for trucks to drop off their loads of cargo. "And that looks like our missing truck," Ravi piped up at the sight of the white shipping truck parked just inside the door. Overcome with excitement, they jogged to the back of the truck, and Ravi jerked the handle on the rolling door to the side before yanking the slider upwards. Inside on wooden pallettes sat boxes of Filmore Graves brain tubes wrapped in plastic.

"We found the brains and Andrew Boughlin's killer... not that anything we've uncovered is admissable--between coming from visions and not having a search warrant," Liv sighed, looking back towards the direction of the unconscious zombies left in their wake.

"This was a desperate situation," Ravi reminded her. "The most important thing is that we found the brains. Filmore Graves will handle the rest. They don't seem too particular about due process anyhow." He strode across the garage to fling open the door, revealing the rain that had started to pour down over the street. "We need to get the keys to the truck," he announced waving to an anxious Clive and Steve outside.

Liv remained motionless at the back of the truck, her eyes distant as she chewed her lip in distraction. "There's something else we need to do," Liv announced. She raised her gaze to meet Ravi's eyes. "Our victim was an exit counsellor. He'd been hired by a teenage girl's family to help her get out of the Triple Cross Cult. I saw her, Ravi. That was the Julie he was calling out for. She looked terrified and in way over her head. We have to find her and help her."

*******************************

The falling rain cast reflections across the wet pavement under the streetlights outside Liv and Peyton's apartment as Ravi, Liv, Peyton, and Blaine sat along the long grey couch watching the day's news. Peyton rested her head on Liv's shoulder, while Blaine rubbed her tired feet through two pairs of snuggly socks. Peyton flipped from news report to news report with restless frustration as she tried to process the overall tone being presented. Flicking past Johnny Frost as quickly as possible, she finally stopped on one of the city's other popular channels.

"The city and Filmore Graves forces presided over an outreach program to feed a large portion of Seattle's zombie population today after a truck full of brain tubes was stolen from the secure processing facility," began a blond anchorwoman with an affected voice and a smart, mahogany colored suit. It was the same reporter Peyton had seen interviewing people in the park. "While their efforts kept Seattle's zombies fed, the afternoon wasn't without incident. Officials were sent scrambling when it suddenly seemed to start raining brains. I was live on the scene to bring you all the details."

The report switched to pre-recorded footage of the same reporter at the mouth of New Seattle Square during the tail end of the afternoon. "Some are calling it a prank, some are calling it a worrying lapse in security, and _some_ are calling it a miracle," she intoned with the same predictable cadence that every reporter seemed to use in Peyton's experience.

Peyton huffed over the footage of on-site interviews as they lead away from the more grounded onlookers to the fringe group proclaiming the brains to be of some divine origin. She winced at the scene of the zombie child thanking Blaine for performing a miracle, and various believers in the crowd taking notice. Blaine squinched his eyes shut tightly and let his head drop backwards against the top of the backrest. Opening his eyes with a pained expression, he looked at Peyton from the corner of his eyes to see how she was reacting to each bit of news.

She covered her eyes with her hands as the location report concluded with the official statement from the city. HD television would have revealed Peyton's injuries to all of Seattle, including Angus, so she couldn't give the statement herself. Between being Angus's son and the fact that Angus clearly wanted attention on Blaine, he was also immediately not an option. Major was still too well known as the Chaos Killer. Scraping the bottom of the barrel, Peyton had only been left with one choice.

Don E.'s shaved head glistened slightly from having jogged through the rain, as he popped up under the reporter's umbrella with a wild smile and a big wave at the camera. "Hey! You're Gayle Royce! I watch you every evening," he cried, turning to shake her hand with profuse enthusiasm.

"Does the city have anything to say about the chunks of brain that were falling into the crowd this afternoon?" she asked, trying to keep Don E. from throwing her off her subject.

"Glad you asked, Gayle!" Don E. replied with so much cheer that she might has well have asked him what he wanted for Christmas. Gayle jumped at his too loud voice and moved the mic further from his mouth as he continued. "The Seattle police and Filmore Graves are currently investigating. They are taking this prank seriously, but it's important to note that nobody was hurt here today, there were no panics, and the joint security team kept things running smoothly throughout the entire day," Don E. declared, only slightly too well rehearsed after Peyton's coaching.

Before Gayle could take back the microphone for a comment, Don E. grabbed it and added in a quick breath, "Today was a success because zombies and humans chose to work together in the wake of the theft. The city also extends its thanks to the employees of Romero's and The Scratching Post, who worked their butts off cooking and serving everyone here today. And remember humans and zombies are both welcome and valued customers at Romero's and The Scratching Post, where we even have special human vs. zombie dance-offs every Tuesday night!" Don E. grinned broadly while Gayle wrestled the mic back from him. He gave the viewers at home two thumbs up.

"Well, that could have been worse," Liv ventured, and Ravi nodded. "I'm guessing that was a little creative license at the end when he broke into an advertisement, but otherwise he stayed on message and didn't let her lead him," Liv added, shaking her fists with encouraging vigor.

Peyton quietly agreed. _We got through it, and the worst of today is over,_ she consoled herself. Don E. had, as Blaine had said, proven to be quite difficult to out talk. "Still don't know how they were able to slip back into the crowd so easily for a clean getaway," Peyton groused with a stifled yawn.

"They're like the world's most sinister flash mob," Blaine complained, and Peyton snorted loudly. Even Liv and Ravi got a chuckle out of the attempt to reduce Angus and his followers to something ridiculous for the moment.

The television switched back to the studio. "In other news, citizens across Seattle can breathe a sigh of relief after police on the trail of a hit and run stumbled across the stolen truck full of brains. Zombies can collect their rations at the usual distribution points starting tomorrow morning by presenting their meal cards." Liv held up one hand and Ravi slapped a high five across it in celebration of their victory. "Filmore Graves soldiers took three men connected to the truck recovery into questioning, but no names have been released to the public," Gayle concluded, and Ravi squeezed Liv's arm.

Gayle's co-anchor cut in with a segueway to the next story, and Peyton prepared to flick to another station. "Despite these attempted reassurances from the city and Filmore Graves in the wake of both the brutal attack on City Hall last week and the brain theft, our breaking news tonight paints a more troubling picture for the private military giant and Mayor Floyd Baracus. Disturbing new footage links Chase Graves to staging the attack on Mayor Baracus's campaign fundraiser that got the beleaguered Mayor elected."

Peyton's jaw locked, and she sat up straight, pulling her feet from Blaine's lap and planting them on the floor as she leaned forward. Blaine's head shot back up as he snapped to attention beside her. Liv raised her eyes to Ravi's to share a look of surprised concern.

"Brother Love's latest attack against the corporation and our local government comes through a new video he's posted for the whole world to see," the male reporter continued, his brown eyes staring straight into the camera with no signs of emotion towards the news he was relating.

"Why didn't anyone call us with a heads up?" Liv wondered aloud.

"Over thirty people in our offices were murdered last week, Sweetie. We're shorthanded and struggling to keep up with each new catastrophe as it happens. Everyone's been focused on the brain situation," Peyton reminded her. She crossed her arms over her chest and shot a petulent stare at the television. "Dammit! I thought we were in the clear for at least a little bit."

The broadcast cut to Angus McDonough standing behind a cherrywood pulpit framed by red curtains and two large baskets of white calla lillies. His white and gold robes combined with his zombie white skin and hair gave him a strange, colorless appearance. "Brothers and sisters, I have been warning you all for months about the iniquities transpiring between Filmore Graves and Mayor Floyd Baracus, and tonight I come to you with proof--video proof and a confession from a reformed conspirator in the plot to get Mayor Floyd Baracus elected and to turn this into a puppet government run by none other than Chase Graves himself."

The camera swung onto a man in Filmore Graves blue seated in a chair to the side of the stage--the camera angle carefully constructed to display him from about mid-chest upwards. This was clearly the missing soldier that Major had told them about back at Romero's--one of Chase Graves' trusted circle.

Blaine bit the inside of his cheek, and his eyes narrowed as the man began to speak and to introduce himself. "My name is Major Allen Cody from Filmore Graves, and I was the shooter for the faked attack on Mayor Floyd Baracus. After a lot of soul searching, I decided that I needed to change my life to save my soul. I want my family and friends to know that they have no need to worry about me, because I'm safe with my brothers and sisters from the Triple Cross Church." The man's eyes fixed so tightly ahead and to the side of the camera that it was clear he'd been reading from cue cards.

"If this guy was really prompted by soul searching, why was there a chair surrounded by blood splatter in the warehouse with the stolen truck?" Liv asked, her incredulous voice pointed as though it were a pin poking holes in a balloon full of hot air.

"And why isn't he speaking from the pulpit too?" Ravi noted.

"He can't stand yet, and they don't trust him enough to not have him cuffed to that chair anyhow. Dad had him tortured but ordered them to leave his face camera ready. He's reading from a script. Cue cards... right of the camera according to his eyeline," Blaine said in a tight voice. He recognized the tell-tale signs, and he knew exactly where Angus had drawn the inspiration for this little stunt from. This was exactly how Blaine had forced Angus to change the addendum to his will during their battle of attrition--though at the time Blaine hadn't been able to stomach watching the torture himself. Blaine's anger rose like towering walls of flame, scorching him from the inside as he watched his father on the screen, and he imagined shooting Angus right between the eyes. With delight Blaine pictured the dumb look of shock that would be Angus McDonough's final expression.

"We waited until I took over on security duty so that the other soldiers wouldn't know. After I shot at Baracus, knowing he was a zombie and perfectly safe, Chase Graves pretended to shoot at me, hitting the railing by my hand, and I made good my escape--taking off the clothing over my uniform and joining the hunt for the attacker. I was paid a ten thousand dollar bonus for my part, which my banking records can prove," Major Cody continued.

The video went on to show phone camera footage of Major Cody and Chase Graves conferring that night, and one could clearly hear Chase Graves say, "The only way to get this turkey up in the polls is to make the voters think he has some kind of chutzpah instead of being the doughy imbecile he is. We move in ten minutes." Chase's gaze shifted to whoever was covertly filming them on their phone and added, "Then let's try to make sure nobody asks inconvenient questions about why anyone would target a candidate who was already losing so badly."

"So Blaine's father cripples the Mayor's Office and gathers the brains for the stunt he pulled this afternoon? Then he steals the brain tubes, while at the same time kidnapping the guy who can prove Chase Graves faked the attack that got Baracus elected," Liv said, trying to trace Angus' actions out loud to untangle them.

"And he used all the chaos from his attacks as a distraction to hide the next step in his plan," Peyton sighed.

"What kind of evil genius is your father?" Ravi groaned.

Blaine didn't respond. Peyton could feel him physically shaking beside her, as he glowered straight ahead--no longer even looking at the television. If there was a facial expression for murder, Peyton suspected that Blaine was currently wearing it. "You okay? I have personal massagers that don't vibrate that much," she told him, hoping to surprise him out of whatever dark thoughts had hold of him.

Instead, his breathing quick and ragged, Blaine leapt to his feet and headed towards the door. He moved in long strides, and neither spoke nor looked at anyone. His hands curled into claws as he pictured ripping Angus apart one extremity at a time.

"Blaine?" Peyton called, jumping off the couch and running after him. It wasn't until she was practically on top of him that she registered the stark whiteness of his skin peppered with small dark veins like winter snow disturbed by tiny leafless twigs at the edge of a forest.

He shut his eyes, as she stepped in front of him, and he stopped dead in his tracks clearly alert to the fact that after what she'd been through, seeing another raging zombie could be terrifying to her and not wanting to make any moves to frighten her. His chest rose and fell with his rapid shallow breaths, and she wondered if he was struggling to restrain himself from accidentally hurting her in his attempts to flee the room. "Blaine?" she called again, and when he opened his eyes to look at her, his eyes were cold steel wrapped in a sea of molten fire.


	7. Demons

Blaine saw Peyton flinch under his gaze, and it was everything he'd feared it would be. _I was always one of the monsters_ , Blaine reminded himself with bitter satisfaction at the way the pain sliced into him. _Maybe it's better that she finally gets to see it._ When he tried to step to the right and duck around her, Peyton took a step to the side to stand in front of him again. He balled his hands into fists at his sides, afraid to touch her to try to move her out of the way even though he could easily lift her and set her to the side to clear a path. _Would she scream? Would she look at me and see my father reaching for her?_ Blaine felt ill at the possibility.

"Where are you going? Talk to me, Blaine! What is going on?" Peyton swallowed. Her heart raced as she stared into Blaine's scarlet eyes, registering the deathly dark shadows that surrounded them. Confronting Blaine with his zombie otherness out in the open for anyone to see filled her with panic. His panting, heaving breaths reminded her of Liv in full on zombie mode after protecting Peyton from a crazed zombie assassin who had broken into in their apartment. Where Liv had been trying to calm down, Blaine only grew more agitated.

Blaine looked down. His nose flared and his lip curled at the thought of his father's Machivellian prowess. "It's all the stuff you don't want to know about," Blaine told her in frustration. "This is how my dad operates! If you let him scheme from the shadows, you can never beat him. He pulls everyone's strings, and he will manipulate people right where he wants them! The only chance is to get ahead of him and set the fight on our own terms!"

"So you're going out to try to get ahead of him?" Peyton challenged him. She gestured at his deathly white skin and raging eyes as she continued, "If you go out like this, some terrified human is going to take one look at you and shoot you in the head! Anything your dad is doing to manipulate us I need to know! What the hell has been going on in the last six months?!"

"It's not the last six months, Peyton! It's my whole life!" Blaine shouted back throwing his hands into the air. Seething at the memories of everything his father had done, he leaned over her, and his voice bled anger and pain with every word as he added, "It's him twisting my mother into knots until she'd rather blow her brains out than spend another second with him! It's a whole childhood of being beaten, starved, and humiliated! It's Dad getting my grandpa put away to steal his money and company. It's Dad cutting off Candy's fingers so he could find me and try to steal my business. It's his part in our breakup! Him blackmailing me into weekly free lunches for him and 'my brothers and sisters'. It's what he did to you!" Blaine jutted his chin towards her, his jaw tightening, and his face crinkled up as he tried to lock his emotions down, his eyes still glaring at her and sharp with anguish.

From the couch Liv and Ravi shifted in discomfort, tearing their wide eyes away from Blaine and Peyton and sharing a look that said they would rather escape but were afraid of being noticed and making the moment even more tense and awkward.

Peyton staggered under the weight of all the information Blaine had just revealed. His eyes filled with tears, and Peyton instinctively reached forward to soothe them away. Blaine took a step back with a look of alarm, and Peyton's hand was left hanging in the air between them. _How much can one person bottle up before they explode?_ she wondered. She needed time to process the string of abuse Blaine had just related to her, but one particular accusation against Angus surprised her enough that she had to ask. "He was involved in our breakup?" she repeated in a stunned voice that broke over the last word. _Of course Angus would be secretly tied to the one thing I specifically asked Blaine not to tell me about._

Blaine stalked back and forth in front of her. He hadn't meant to open up a conversation, and he needed to get out of here. "Just forget I said it. I'm completely capable of destroying everything I touch without his help," Blaine said. He gestured towards her as he lowered his eyes and added, "With one notable exception I'm just an ugly human being--filled with ugly memories, ugly thoughts, and ugly emotions."

"I will not forget it!" Peyton yelled back at him. "What did your father have to do with our breakup?" She crossed her arms over her chest.

Blaine stared briefly at Ravi and Liv still watching from the couch in a state of shock. He closed his eyes and drew his shoulders in tight as though he wanted to make himself small.

While Blaine stalled, Liv took the opportunity to grab Ravi and push him out of the room in front of her so that they could escape the tense atmosphere and afford Peyton and Blaine some privacy to finish their argument. Liv pointed towards her room and mouthed the words "if you need me" at Peyton over Blaine's shoulder.

Blaine watched their retreating backs as though watching enemies withdrawing from the battlefield while expecting them to turn and attack again at any moment. He waited until he heard the sound of them closing the door to Liv's room before he turned his attention back to Peyton, who waited with a heartsick and fearful look for him to explain. "It starts with how Don E. and I fell out the night I rescued you from Mr. Boss," Blaine began with a grimace.

Blaine's shoulders still rose and fell with his ragged breathing, but a sense of exhaustion was creeping into him so that he seemed more like a runner nearing the end of a marathon than a cornered, wild animal now. "It had been building for awhile for lots of reasons, most of which boil down to money, control, and you. I'd ordered Don E. to leave Boss alone before I took the second cure because that was a war that was going to get everyone killed. He didn't listen, and that's how lots of our old crew ended up dead and Boss learned that I was still alive--despite him slitting my throat and burying me in the woods." His shoulders slumped. "I blamed Don for them knowing to kidnap you to get to me, and I took all the money he'd stolen from Boss to get back at him. Don E. figured out that I had my memory back, and he blamed me for choosing you over him and the business. Dad was in the freezer because I'd made a deal with Major after finding out Major had kidnaped him, and Don E. took him with the intention of thawing him out and teaming up to take me down."

"And this is the same Don E. who you were letting guard me today?" Peyton demanded.

"Yeah.... Don E. was dealing with a lot of abandonment issues and anger after losing both his twin and Chief," he explained, his expression animated with his need to absolve his friend. Peyton glared at him evidently no longer intimidated by seeing him in rage mode. Blaine could see those mitigating circumstances carried more weight for him than they they did for Peyton, but then he'd known both Scott E. and Chief. "It gets worse before it gets better," Blaine warned, and Peyton clearly wanted to shake him.

Blaine's breathing slowed, the knot in his chest relaxing. His skin warmed as the blood flow began to return to normal. His rage was wearing off as he finally vented everything he'd been wanting to say for so long. _Shut up, shut up, shut up!_ his brain railed at him, but even if he was about to drive Peyton away again with the truth, he couldn't stop the flow of words pouring out of him. "I wanted to see who I could be without all the baggage and the damage, and I was distracted by the chance of starting over with you. I'd never been that happy before. I wanted to just let my old life die, so I pretended to still have amnesia even after my memory returned. Meanwhile, Dad and Don E. started their own underground businesses and laid the groundwork to steal my clients once they had me where they wanted me," Blaine confessed.

"And when they had you where they wanted?" Echoes from the past reverberated through Peyton's thoughts. " _One of Blaine's old running buddies was in today..._ " she remembered Ravi saying, and she kicked herself for never stopping to question Don E.'s motive behind dropping that information.

"The next step was to isolate me so I would be an easy target," he answered, shifting from foot to foot. "They wanted to take away everything, so I'd be at rock bottom when they finally killed me." Peyton's head snapped to attention, her eyes wide and her expression begging Blaine to tell her that even Angus couldn't have been that cruel. He knew that despite recent events Peyton hadn't been prepared for this even if she'd known it in her heart.

"Don E. came into the lab and planted the seed in Ravi's ear that I had my memory back, knowing it would help it come out in the worst way. You came over trying to secretly pry the truth out of me, and, when I told you, that was it." Peyton stared at him with the same look of surprised pain that he remembered from the first time he'd confessed to her. He wondered if he wore the same expression too, because all the fear and and vulnerability coiled inside his chest felt the same. He wanted to reach for her.

Blaine inhaled a deep breath and held it for a moment before getting to the really dirty bits. "While I was wallowing and ignoring the business, Dad stole all my clients. Then he sent Don E. and Tanner with Dino, so Don could gloat before Dino killed me. His orders were one shot in the gut, let me suffer for awhile, and then one in the head to finish me." Peyton clapped one hand over her mouth. Her eyes glistened, and her chest heaved with a barely contained gasp. _Is there ever going to be a time I don't hurt or disappoint her?_ Blaine wondered.

He sagged as he continued the story for her. "So Dino takes the first shot, delivers Dad's message... and I'm lying on the floor trying to think of _anything_ that can keep me alive. I paid him every cent that Don E. had stolen from Boss to bribe him. Then I had to go scare up one of my former clients to tell me where to find Dad and turn me before I died."

Peyton needed something to hold onto, but the only thing nearby was Blaine. She stared him in the eye, afraid of how he would answer but needing the truth. "Why didn't you call me? I could have had Liv-"

"Last I'd seen of Liv was her punching me in the face at my final show!" Blaine exclaimed. "I didn't have time to waste convincing you that it wasn't some kind of stunt or trick, and I sure as hell didn't want to drag you into any more dealings with my dad. I should never have let you meet him in the first place! I just... I wanted to let you see... see beneath the surface... and I was... tired of facing him alone. Do you have any idea how hard it was signing 32 million dollars back over to that son of a bitch and eating shit in the hopes that maybe I could finally be free from him? But I need to keep you as _far_ away from him as possible! Thought I'd at least managed that--until Liv called."

"If I hadn't gotten attacked... you'd have never told me any of this," Peyton realized in a daze. She turned away for a moment trying to catch the suddenly wild thoughts racing through her head. "...And after all that you _still_ managed to patch things up with Don E.?"

Blaine nodded. There was no point in denying any of it. "Working with my dad it didn't take Don E. long to realize how much he hated Pops. The business was too big for me to handle alone. After I locked my old man up, it wasn't hard for Don E. and I to reach an understanding," Blaine said. He planted his hands on his hips and slouched slightly. "We worked through our issues while hammering out our new partnership. We both put everything into making the business a success, which meant we had to be a team... have each other's backs. We didn't know Dad was free until he showed up at the restaurant to blackmail me into feeding his flock every week and sharing family dinner with him."

Blaine tensed realizing just how many things in what he'd revealed Peyton could rightfully get angry about. His uncertain eyes slid to Peyton's once more. "If you want me to leave, I'll get my stuff, but you need to know the only way to be free is to end him, Peyton." His eyes, long since returned to their normal blue, shone with unshed tears as he waited for her to tell him to go.

"No!" Peyton countered, and Blaine straightened in surprise at her vehemence. "I'm not saying that I wouldn't like to see him dead, but I don't want you to be the one who does it." She raised a hand to stop his protest before it began. "If it were that easy for you he'd have been dead after he tried to kill you," Peyton noted. "You didn't so much as flinch when you killed Boss's men to save me, yet you left this man alive when he had ordered your death on top of everything else. You can stop pretending your feelings are so cut and dry because I know better. Nobody should have to kill their own parent, Blaine. It would just be another wound at his hands. It ends now."

Blaine stared at her with his jaw slack and eyes round. He ran his tongue over the edge of his front teeth. He wanted to kiss her and thank her for rushing to his defense again. Instead he heard himself ask, "What makes you think it wasn't because I wanted to keep torturing him? Maybe I thought death was too good for him."

Peyton sighed and scratched her forehead, wincing at the way the goose egg twinged under the touch. "Even after everything he'd already done, you were willing to just walk away until he came after you. You weren't plotting to torture him when you were trying to start over with me. You said Don E. found him in the freezer. By then you had his money. He was still alive, and you weren't torturing him for fun then either. Not killing your dad, despite ample chances, seems to be a pattern."

This time when she reached for Blaine, he let her cup his cheek with her palm--leaning into the caress as he squeezed his eyes tightly closed and swallowed. _When he's dead so is any dream that he might ever love me_ , Blaine admitted to himself. That was the wound that had kept Blaine returning to the well over and over to verbally throw Angus's failure to love Blaine in his face. It was the twisted, heartbreaking hope hidden at the bottom of his heart that had stayed his hand from killing his father, despite his rational mind telling him that it would never happen. It was the unbearable truth that under every glib "love you" a broken piece of Blaine really did mean it--not for the man Angus was but for the dream of a father that Blaine had never been able to relinquish.

A sob shook him, and Peyton's arms curled around his neck and shoulders. He was thankful that Peyton wasn't forcing him to say it aloud. Her fingers crushed his carefully sculpted platinum waves as her hand pressed his head against her shoulder, and he tightened his arms around her waist. He hadn't been held like this since he was a child and only rarely then. It wasn't that his mother didn't try to comfort him, but even as a child he'd seen how fragile she was trying to even stay afloat herself. He'd begun to hide the abuse from her at an early age in an attempt to protect her. Instead of running to her he ran to the family wishing well. In his mind he could hear Angus snarling, "I'll give you something to cry about," and the old reflex to stifle his tears kicked in.

He raised his head, brushing his cheek against her ear and nudging the side of her head. "If you still need to vent," she began, as Blaine pulled away with a nod. He would have loved to stay in the warm comfort of Peyton's light, but he knew that wasn't the type of catharsis that he really needed right now. Her gentle fingers swiped the remaining tears away, and her soft lips followed those tender touches, planting kisses against his salty cheeks and closed eyelids.

"I need to go out where I can lean into being angry," Blaine told her, and Peyton immediately looked concerned again. He brushed the hair back from the side of her face to calm her. "I need to get into fighting mode. Feeling sad or like a victim won't get it done," he explained, and understanding flashed behind Peyton's eyes.

She leaned her face close to his. "I get it. First day out of the hospital I couldn't even look in the mirror without feeling like a victim," Peyton said, and Blaine had to close his eyes and count to ten to channel his fury yet again over what his father had done to her.

Peyton strode towards the door with purpose in her step, and she fished her keys out of her purse, which hung on one of the hooks in the entryway. Returning to Blaine's side she pressed the jangling keys into his palm and closed his fingers around them. Her green eyes burned into his. "Get your head in the game, and when you get home we can compare plans."

Blaine blinked in surprise. His mouth opened, but he couldn't think of what to say. Peyton had never referred to her apartment as Blaine's home before. It wasn't a slip of the tongue. She had obviously chosen the word deliberately. He understood there were unspoken conditions in her offer, but he'd walked away from his criminal empire before for her. He pulled her against his chest and held her as if he were trying to hold onto this moment before it could slip away from them.

"I'll bring home some wine," he promised, testing the word out for himself. One small syllable that rolled off his tongue with ease, yet it was filled with all the promise and joy of sharing his life with Peyton and all the terror of actually having something to lose. Peyton smiled at him, and he clenched the keys tightly in his fist as he kissed her goodbye and headed out the front door while slipping on his leather jacket.

Blaine paused in the hallway looking back at the door and then at the keys in his hand. He took a shuddering breath before stuffing the keys into his front pocket. _Head in the game. Head in the game_ , he reminded himself.

Peyton stared after him as he closed the front door behind him. _Please, don't do anything stupid out there_ , she prayed silently. She could feel the moment coming when she had to tell Blaine everything herself. Tonight they had enough to deal with already, but she could sense the moment lurking between them... and it still frightened her. She remained lost in thought, staring at the door and chewing the inside of her lip, for several minutes. Then the phone rang, shattering any remaining sense of peace with its shrill, insistent howl and the panicked message from the other end.

**********************

Liv blew a raspberry as she closed the door behind them and leaned against it as though she could bar any ghosts of Peyton and Blaine's intense and personal discussion from slipping past using her petite frame as a barrier. "You know, if anyone had told me last week that I'd be trusting Blaine enough to leave Peyton alone with him when he's in zombie mode, I'd have thought they were nuts."

Ravi nodded as he stretched across the white and lavender quilt that covered Liv's bed and matched the amethyst walls of her private space. He rolled onto his side to face her and propped his head up with his bent arm. "He seems to have learned to control his rage really well. Besides, you trusted him at the gun range," Ravi noted. His eyes lit up, his mouth formed an exaggerated circle, and he slapped the mattress repeatedly as a thought struck him. "Oooooh! Maybe it's like the Hulk in Avengers." He dropped his voice into an impression of Mark Ruffalo, as he intoned, "My secret is that I'm always angry."

Liv chuckled and shook her head. It seemed another lifetime when she wouldn't have understood all of Ravi's geeky references and laughed at them. "I just wanted to make sure that scene out there just now wasn't too... _weird_ for you."

"You mean because of the whole history between me and Peyton... and Blaine?" Ravi asked. His brow wrinkled, and his eyes narrowed as he tried to decipher Liv's sudden apparent need to bring up the past. If there was one thing Liv had no need to fear it was any past claims on Ravi's heart. Then again she could just be freaked out herself after having seen a vastly different side of Blaine to what they were used to.

"Partly, I guess," Liv sighed. "I've been living with this for the better part of a week, and I still don't know how to process any of it. You seem to be coping better than I am now."

Ravi looked inwards as he tried to find the words to explain. "I've seen that whole raw, personal vibe between them before -- on the night that Mr. Boss had Peyton kidnapped. I walked into those dark offices, and there they were, on their knees -- holding each other -- like they were an island, set apart in the middle of all the destruction; and it struck me: He wasn't acting when he was comforting her, and all the walls were down for both of them. There was something between them that I had never had in a romantic relationship at the time." Ravi plumped up the pillow trying to make himself more comfortable. "I've had months to process it."

"So you knew it was a serious thing since then?" Liv blinked. She had never heard Ravi speak so openly or calmly about that night.

"I didn't want to admit it at the time. The truth is Peyton never turned to me like that. When she found out about zombies, she fled the city without a word. She didn't think to rush to me for comfort and protection... she didn't worry about me, or try to warn and protect me. All the nights she'd been trying to drink away her heartbreak over Blaine, she never told me the truth about what was driving her. And she'd been worried about him and trying to protect him all night before Boss's men arrived," Ravi continued.

One corner of his mouth pulled back in a wry grimace. "Blaine would walk into any danger for just the chance to be with her and with no promise of reciprocation; but, when she tried to turn to me because she had the heebie jeebies over Mr. Boss, I pulled away because she turned to me as a friend instead of being what I wanted her to be. Back when you were on that straight talk brain, when I first met Peyton, you weren't entirely wrong. I got caught up in the challenge and in the perfect image that Peyton tries to project. People aren't trophies though, and I got over it a long time ago."

Ravi's gaze grew heavy with the weight of the feelings he wanted to express to her. "I realized after the Alt Weekly debacle that you're the most important person in the world to me. The person I can't stand to hurt. The one I want to protect. You're the person I would walk into any danger for. I love you, Liv."

Liv mopped at the inside corners of her eyes, which were suspiciously damp at that final admission. She reached out and nudged his fingers with her own until he laced his fingers with hers. He raised her hand to his cheek and held it there.

"I love you too," Liv replied, her voice soft and warm. She suddenly wanted nothing more than to curl up in Ravi's arms as the events of the day caught up with her. She yawned and stretched. "Peyton already made it quite clear that she wants us to let her handle her own personal business. Let's just hope this leads to an idea for taking down Brother Love."

"Mmm. Because we already have a mission to finish?" Ravi suggested with a questioning look. Liv climbed onto the mattress beside him and sat with her back propped against his midsection, and Ravi slid his other arm around her waist.

"Exactly! That girl was terrified, Ravi. I've gotten a few more flashes of memory, but nothing that tells me how to track down Julie. Clive is looking into every lead I could give him, but helping somebody sneak out of a killer cult is a bit of a specialized discipline. Which means we need to find a way to get more of Andrew Boughlin's brain," Liv groaned.

Ravi pinched her arm just hard enough to to get her attention. "I'm with you, but just don't forget that our victim was done away with by this particular cult," he reminded her.

"I know. _Boy_ , do I know!" Liv replied. She remembered the tail end of the truck swinging towards her through the memory of Mr. Boughlin, and she pressed herself closer against Ravi. "At least the killer is in custody. Do you think Filmore Graves intends to freeze him, or do you think they might try to make a more public example of him to quiet all the public outcry?"

"I wouldn't be surprised," he admitted. "Filmore Graves is in a bit of a pickle, and tonight's news report really put the screws to Chase Graves."

She rubbed his shoulder as she considered the problem of getting the brain back. "That phone video had to have been filmed by Carey Gold," Liv mused. "Chase Graves will know that, but if this video is being leaked now it means that her faction is still working against him. If there's an internal power struggle in the company, they have way bigger problems than finding Julie. Andrew Boughlin's brain has no further use for them...."

"Which means we need to act fast. We still have one friend in the company," Ravi said.

Liv flinched. "If you mean Major, you should know we had another fight this morning at Romero's. He might not be feeling very helpful as a result."

Ravi sighed, and he tugged Liv down to lie in the cup of his curled body. "I know you two have had serious issues since D-day, but he's still Major. Teen in danger who seems to want to go home? You know that's his Achilles' heel, Liv."

"This kid wouldn't even be a zombie if she hadn't had the bad luck to get caught between Carey Gold's Aleutian flu epidemic and Chase's zombie hostage solution. What if Major was the person who turned her? He's leading a unit with child soldiers in it," Liv countered with a grinding of her teeth.

Ravi couldn't see her expression, but he could feel the tension rolling off her. He patted the top of her head, and she looked up at him with a scowl. "If she hadn't been turned the flu would have killed her. And these are two teens who were starving on the street and needed the extra rations for themselves and their families. He wanted to help," Ravi reminded her, trying to be the oil on the water before Liv or he needed to talk to Major. "He's trying to keep them close where he can keep an eye on them."

"If anything happens to those kids, it'll be on his head," Liv said. Her outrage had mostly subsided, and worry tinged her voice with Ravi's reminder of Major's complicated and dangerous attempt at kindness.

"A fear he has to live with every day," Ravi agreed, and he reached into his back pocket to take out his cellphone. Flicking off his screenlock, he pulled up his contacts and dialed Major.

*************************

Blaine tapped the toe of his shoe against the sisel doormat, and he peered through the glass of the front door as he rang the bell again. The front porch light and the flickering glow escaping through the parted curtains of the bay window illuminated the immaculately painted green wooden siding, and Blaine wondered what was taking so long or if he was being outright ignored by the house's occupant who was clearly home and, from the sounds of things, watching The Love Boat.

Finally, slow, unsteady footsteps made their way to the front door, and he could see the hulking shape of the man he'd come to see. Blaine pasted his broadest, shallowest grin upon his face as the door opened and prepared his greeting. "Hey there, Major...." Blaine paused as he noticed the hole in the middle of Major's blue tee shirt and the stiff white bandage beneath, "injury?" It hadn't been the pun he'd been planning, but he gave himself points for the sudden improvisation.

Blaine frowned as Major heaved a sigh and rolled his eyes at Blaine. "Something's different... Don't tell me! Let me guess..." Blaine said. His cockiness grew with Major's exasperation. "I'm guessing Chase Graves didn't take today's events too well. We know you're shot through the heart, but, tell me, did he give love a bad name?"

"As unwelcome as your presence on my doorstep is," Major volleyed back, and Blaine chuckled at the barb. Major eyed Blaine's Audi parked by the curb, as Don E. lifted the visor of his motorcyle helmet and waved from atop his racing bike just behind the car. "What exactly do you want, Blaine?"

Blaine followed Major's eyeline, and then he stared back at the suspicious soldier with a sly look. "Far be it from me to interrupt another man's breakup moping, but I was wondering if you have an extra helmet," Blaine replied.

Major stared at Blaine as though he had suddenly sprouted a second head and probably horns. "What stupid thing are you making me an accomplice to?" Major groaned. He pictured Blaine and Don E. using a Filmore-Graves helmet to heist a bank--despite it being completely outside their modus operandi, but it seemed like the potential cherry on the top of the day he was having.

"Ahhh," Blaine breathed his eyes darting back to Don E. as his open mouth stretched into the smirk of a grand conspiracy. "We're going to break into an abandoned race track to run a few laps, while brainstorming ways to take down my dad. Not as exciting as a romantic cruise aboard the Pacific Princess, I'm sure, but..."

Major's brows lifted as he considered what Blaine had planned. "You realize that military helmets aren't the same thing as racing helmets, right?" he asked, and Blaine gave an indifferent shrug. Major turned back to the direction of the living room where the television was still running in front of the empty leather couch, a half eaten pizza, a few empty beer cans, and a crumpled, brown chenille throw. "I'm in," he announced.

"Uh..." Blaine said. "Did I say we were looking for a drunk soldier to drive my expensive car at high speeds?"

Major grabbed a jacket off the coat rack. "Well, that's a start for the evening. Hey, just think of all the things I have access to that go boom," he quipped. "Lemme just grab some gear." He opened the foyer closet and pulled out some molded armor and a full helmet with visor.

"You're not driving my car," Blaine reiterated, but Major ignored him. Major grimaced and shoved a helmet into Blaine's stomach, and Blaine let out an "ooph" as it knocked the wind out of him. They sauntered towards the car, Major limping while struggling with an armful of heavy armor.

Major dropped the extra gear into the storage space behind the seats, and he collapsed into the passenger's seat. Blaine slung himself behind the wheel and stared at his uninvited passenger as he dropped Major's helmet onto the pile in the back. He double-checked the bottle of wine that he'd stored in the pocket behind his seat for Peyton. Then he turned his attention back towards the soldier panting and trying to get comfortable in the front seat despite his injuries. "Am I not speaking English?" Blaine asked, his expression somewhere between incredulous and mildly offended.

Major rolled his neck to face Blaine, and his blue eyes glimmered with confidence and mischief. "I know where they stored the cars for the abandoned dream tracks," Major said. Before D-day Seattle had been home to several race tracks that specialized in renting out expensive cars to people with enough cash to spare. Several hundred dollars bought a customer three laps with the car of their dreams. "You said you were tired of sitting on the sidelines," Major reminded him. "Same here. So while we're out there, we can start planning our own move."

Blaine pursed his lips as he quickly reevaluated the situation and Major's usefulness. "Welcome aboard," he said.

An hour later they were lazing across the painted cobalt benches that circled the wet race track from atop tiers of cement risers, while Don E. put a bright yellow Lamborghini through it's paces under the sallow, hazy glare of the track's lights. Major sat on the bench one tier above Blaine, and a couple cases of energy drinks sat on the bench and riser between them. " _Another_ thing I don't get is how your dad was able to anticipate that you'd be on hand feeding the zombies today..." Major griped. His frustration overflowing as he built up a head of steam over the myriad ways Angus had managed to outmaneuver everyone today.

Blained turned his head to look up at his unexpected compeer for a moment before returning to watching Don E. zip around the track in another lap. "Wasn't hard. He knows I have the next biggest stash of brains in the city. He knows Grandpa taught me the recipe for Famine Soup. Used to be a family tradition to cook it once a year and hear how our family came to America. Grandpa said it kept us humble-"

"I can see why the tradition died out," Major interjected.

"... _And_ he knows I'd rather do cartwheels naked through the street than lose out on the profit for that many brains."

"So it was an educated guess," Major conceded. "Pretty clear where your ability to scheme comes from." Lying back on the bench Major placed one arm behind his head. His other arm dangled at his side with a mostly finished can held loosely between his fingers. "According to Liv and Ravi, Carey Gold was the person who filmed Chase at the gala. She had a whole secret faction inside Filmore Graves. They were the ones who started the Aleutian flu outbreak. Their plan was to thin out the human population and stockpile brains for food before making zombies the ruling class. Looks like Chase didn't eliminate them all, and the remainder joined up with your father."

"Yeah. That plan's right up Dad's alley," Blaine whistled. He turned and leaned over the backrest, as his mind whirred into action. "So that gives us at least something to go on. Whoever is feeding Dad info is probably pretty high up in the foodchain. They must have been able to arrange to get their mole paired with exactly the soldier they wanted to kidnap," Blaine observed.

Major's eyes widened as an exciting idea struck him. He held up one hand with his index finger extended, the rest of his fingers loosely curled, and he shook his hand back and forth as he spoke. "We could check the paper trail on that. Once we have the spy, we could take them down, feed them misinformation to set them up... maybe we could use them to find where your dad is holed up," he said. He chugged back the last of his drink, while Blaine opened a fresh can and took a sip.

Setting his can on the bench, Blaine stood up and waved his arm, signalling Don E. to come in. "What about Chase Graves? Do you think he's already all over this?"

Major frowned and shook his head as he sat up, and he rubbed the gunshot wound in the center of his chest as it pulled with the movement. "Chase isn't that in control. He's lost a lot of support within the company after he went on a shooting spree tonight to make an example of everyone he felt had let Angus get through their grasp. I'm no longer in his inner circle, and I'm not sure who he's listening to now--if he trusts anyone at all."

Don E. pulled over and glided to a stop in front of them. They could see him removing his helmet and placing it on the empty seat beside him. Then the driver's side door opened, and he climbed out with a huff and a sulk, impatient and indignant at having been interrupted. He caressed the frame of the car with great tenderness as he shut the door. "C'mon, man! My time's not up yet. You both had way longer! God, I _neeeeeed_ this car!" He rested his head against the windshield like a man lounging in the arms of his lover after a particularly vigorous and satisfying bout of lovemaking.

"We've got an idea on how to start taking this fight to Pops," Blaine announced. He spread his arms in a gesture of pride that resembled an invitation to hug.

"Great! Can I at least get my last ten minutes before we go?" A maniacal grin covered his face as he beamed with an idea. "Or I could just take this baby with me... Nobody else would ever even know..."

"It's a car, not a stray dog," Blaine reminded him. He grabbed his drink off the bench, and took a long swig.

"Hey! You'll hurt her feelings!" Don E. whined. Giving the car another fond caress as he passed in front of the hood, he cooed, "My pretty baby." Then he clambered up into the seats and made his way towards Blaine and Major, scrabbling over the benches like a less than coordinated, but determined, moutain goat rather than concede the longer but easier path up the aisle. "So what's cooking up here?" he asked, slightly winded by his arduous climb.

"We're planning a little field trip to Filmore Graves headquarters," Blaine said. He smirked as he looked back at Major, and Major moved a fraction closer with a nod united by their plan. "We're going to see if tackling their little vermin problem could lead us to Dad and his spies."

"I track down whoever put in the assignment to pair our fake driver with Major Cody. Then I can go through the perpetrator's office and computer. You two can help me cause any distractions that might be necessary. If all else fails, I have complete confidence in your skills for kidnapping and extracting information," Major explained. Blaine rolled his eyes, but Don E. broke into a grin at what he considered flattery. "I need to pick up a little something for Liv while we're there."

"You might wanna do that first in case we need to make a fast exit," Blaine said. As he spoke he flipped his wrists, his pointer fingers extended.

"Now this is turning into a party!" Don E. cheered. He rubbed his hands together. "How 'bout we celebrate with a quick race -- all three of us competing out there at once?" He held up his hands and flexed his fingers as if he were encouraging them to pull up further while parallel parking. His eyebrows lifted as he grinned like a loon, and with a cackle he sprinted back towards the waiting Lamborghini.

"He _really_ wants that car, doesn't he?" Major muttered under his breath to Blaine.

"Oh, yeah!" Blaine replied. He patted Major on the arm, and his eyes filled with conciliation. "Glad I'm not you." Then he vaulted over the bench in front of him and trailed after Don E., while Major hung his head before following the duo of bantering crooks who were busy engaging in smack talk.

********************

Blaine drummed against the edge of the desk, while he waited for Major to finish going through the logs for the name of the officer who had set Angus' agent into the perfect position. Major had donned his chest plate to hide his injury and the fact that he still hadn't changed out of the clothing he'd been wearing when he got shot, and nobody had questioned his return to the Filmore-Graves compound so soon after his shift ended or the two complaining restaurant owners plaguing his every step. Major's eyes brightened as he found the form he'd been searching for. "I should have known," Major sneered, showing Blaine the copy of the filed orders. "It's Hobb. That little toadie is always in Chase's ear."

"And if he has his way, soon he'll be in Chase Graves's chair," Blaine said.

"He has a history of giving bad advice. He's been front and center pushing for the death penalty and guillotines. Everything he tells Chase to do blows up and makes Chase more unpopular. Now we know it's on purpose." Major scowled. He grabbed the heavy blue binder that contained the incriminating evidence before anyone else could dispose of it.

"You're sure nobody's already tampered with that?" Don E. asked. His eyes narrowed and his mouth drew down on one side. He petted the cooler on his knee that held the remainder of Andrew Boughlin's brain for Liv.

"Yeah. Hobb is an unctuous, little weasel who makes everybody believe he has no cunning of his own, but underneath he's cocky. He doesn't believe anyone else will see through his yes man act. Something bold, he'd cover in a heartbeat. He wouldn't have thought of something as mundane as assignment request paperwork, because Chase wouldn't think of minor paperwork. If anything dawns on him it wouldn't be until after the news tonight, but nobody else has been accessing the records." Major passed the book to Blaine. "Liv or Peyton could make good use of this."

"So is it time to break into this dude's office, or what?" Don E. asked, his interest perking up now that the 'boring' part in his opinion was out of the way and he might have something to do. He bounced off the sleek, black chair and leaned across the desk behind where Blaine sat. Blaine passed Don E. the log book, and Don protested that he was not "some glorified bag man." Then the pair of them shared a look before smiling at Major in unison.

Blaine pretended to pester Major about requesting additional protection for his brain shipments while he and Don E. followed Major up to Hobb's office. There was no sign of anyone through the glass of the office when they arrived. Blaine pulled a lockpicking kit out of his inside jacket pocket, while Major and Don E. covered him from sight in case somebody came along. Then he inserted his first pick into the lock that fit neatly into the shiny chrome bar that lined the edge of one of the glass doors. He added a second narrow pick and used the pair of them to hold open the tumblers inside the lock and turn it. The door swung inwards without a sound, and Blaine held out his arm like a butler for Major to go first. "So the guy doesn't warrant any real security?" Blaine sniped.

"I got you through three security checkpoints just to get here!" Major responded, rising to the bait. "And the room is made of glass! There is literally no place to hide what we're doing."

Blaine shook his head. "Just when I think you've mastered the fine art of sarcasm, you disappoint me," he said. "Keep an eye out for anyone coming," he told Don E. as they began rifling through the desk and computer. Blaine started with the bookshelves against the back wall, while Major began with looking under Hobb's blotter, and scouring through the drawers one by one.

The main drawers turned up nothing, until only the locked pencil drawer under the desk remained. Major summoned Blaine over to pick the lock for him, and Blaine bent his blond head to the task as he knelt by the desk--the quiet click and scrape of his picks the only sound in the room as all three men held their breath. Don E. looked on with jealousy at not getting to join in the fun of the search.

After a few moments the drawer popped open, and Major wrinkled his nose at a jumble of DVD-R discs stuffed into the pencil drawer along with a microSD card inside a police evidence bag. Major scowled as he quickly pocketed the evidence bag, while Blaine was putting away his picks. His eyes scanned the labels on the discs, and his expression darkened even further as he recognized them. "This is the surveillance footage we got from today. It's supposed to be being reviewed by our people right now," he said. A fine current of anger ran beneath the usually friendly voice.

He looked up at Blaine, and they shared a grimace. Without further comment the two men scooped the discs up, shoving them into their pockets with as much care as they could manage while working quickly. "It looks like you've got one hell of a rat problem," Don E. commented from the doorway, and Major agreed.

On the way out Blaine pestered Major about having too much security on his restaurant, just to keep from getting bored with his story and demands, and Major played along warning Blaine to be careful what he wished for in the future. Striding across the main lobby to escape through the glass door as quickly as possible, the trio stopped as though turned to stone by the sight of a short man with non-descript, mousy hair and a slightly babyish face entering through the front doors. Major knew him on sight, and Blaine and Don froze as they read the name across the front of his uniform -- Hobb.

"Hey, Buddy!" Don E. greeted him in a loud, cordial voice as he closed the remaining distance between them, and threw his arm around the neck of the man in a deft flourish that hid the small two shot pistol springing out of his sleeve as he pulled the ring around his middle finger. He pressed the gun into the back of Hobb's neck, angled so that it presssed warningly against Hobb's brainstem at the base of his skull. "Walk me to my car," Don E. demanded in that same tone masked as friendship.

"What's to keep me from calling for security?" Hobb replied in a low, tense voice so that nobody else could overhear the four of them, his eyes darting from Major and Blaine to Don E.'s face as he searched for an opening. Blaine and Major followed after Don E., hurrying to catch up as they all headed towards the entrance.

"Because with what we can prove about you, going into Filmore-Graves would be a death sentence for you. You would be their top prisoner with so many guards and so much attention on you that there would be no way out and no chance of your buddies being able to rescue you. Your only hope is if you can escape from us, once we get outside," Blaine told him as Don E. marched Hobb through the front door.

"Even if your chances aren't good, you gotta take that shot," Don E. said. "Just remember I'm happy to take this shot." He pushed the gun harder against Hobb's skin to drive his point across, and Hobb did as instructed like a docile animal being lead towards certain death--until they reached Blaine's car.

While they waited for Blaine to unlock the trunk at the front of the car, Hobb suddenly reached backwards in an attempt to grab the gun. Don E. pulled his arm forward as he saw Hobb prepare for the attack; and, instead of Hobb managing to grab Don's wrist, Don took the opportunity to preemptively hit Hobb in the balls.

The shorter man doubled over with a high, breathless keening, and he opened his eyes to find three guns trained on him, as Major and Blaine drew their firearms. Major produced a pair of FG issued handcuffs from his belt, and with little regard for Hobb's cries of discomfort Major shackled their prisoner's hands behind his back. Blaine shoved an old rag in Hobb's mouth. Then Blaine pushed Hobb into the trunk, and their flight began in earnest.

"Do you have anybody inside that company that you can absolutely trust?" Blaine asked, as he and Major threw themselves into the cabin of the car. Don E. mounted his bike and lead the way ahead of them as Blaine clicked on his seatbelt and put the car in gear behind him.

"Yeah. Members of my squad, and a good friend or two," Major answered.

"Get them to Romero's so we can have more eyes to review that surveillance footage. Have them bring in any laptops or electronics that could help them watch those discs. I'll call Carl and set up what we can. We're closed until we get our next shipment of brains anyhow."

They passed through the front gate unmolested. Hobb didn't make a sound, still hoping that he had some small chance of escape once outside the Filmore-Graves compound. After that Blaine made a point of sticking close to Don E. and not lingering anywhere for long until they reached the restaurant. Blaine sent Liv a text to tell Peyton where he was and that he was going to be late. Muttering about buying Peyton a new phone, he opened the trunk and let Carl and Major wrestle the now desperately struggling Hobb inside the kitchen, while a soldier Blaine didn't recognize took the DVDs from them and ran the discs upstairs to the media room they had cobbled together in the dining room.

An open mahogany coffin sat on the floor in the middle of the kitchen space in front of them. The open lid revealed the shimmering white satin lining of the empty casket, which was blatantly waiting for Hobb. Major stopped and pulled on Hobb's arm so that the man had an excellent view of the coffin and time to picture them forcing him inside it. "Are you sure about this?" Major asked Blaine, well-aware of his role in this plan. He watched as Hobb's attention shifted to Blaine who wore the face of a man who was barely holding himself back from violence. Hobb took an involuntary step backwards towards Major.

"I think the only question is how much pain does he have to cause versus how much pain does he want to cause..." Don E. broke in -- the demon on Blaine's other shoulder. He capered over to the prep table, where Carl had laid out a host of menacing equipment for them. His hand slowly passed over brass knuckles, garden shears, pliers, small knives, nut picks, bolt cutters, one of the small blowtorches they used for making creme brulee. "It's like Christmas. I don't know where to start," he said.

"We're all zombies here! We're on the same side!" Hobb cried out. Blaine recoginzed trying to reason as the prelude to begging, but the truth was he would love to hurt Hobb as a surrogate for the man he really wanted to destroy.

Don E. grabbed the brass knuckles, and drove his fist into Hobb's cheekbone, producing a wail from Hobb and a spray of blood as the metal split the skin and cracked the man's cheekbone. "I was going to pardon you when I took control!" Hobb howled at Blaine, and Blaine held up a hand to stop Don E. from taking another swing.

" _Pardon_ me?" Blaine repeated. "For what?"

"You can help rule in a zombie paradise... have everything your heart desires," Hobb promised. His eyes gleamed, burning with ambition and greed rather than the fanaticism of Angus's true believers. "But not without my help."

"He's obviously full of useful information," Major intereceded. "He's willing to cut a deal..." Major looked to Blaine as though pleading for leniency, and Hobb nodded.

"We can all get what we want," Hobb told them.

"If he's full of good information that's exactly why we need to torture it out of him. If there's really something good in this, it's one less way to have to split the rewards," Don E. countered.

"Put him in the coffin," Blaine ordered. Carl handed him a syringe and a small glass vial before joining Major in wrestling the struggling zombie into the open casket, pausing to shove the rag back into his mouth to quiet him. Meanwhile, Blaine made a big show of drawing a dose of whatever was in the vial and preparing the injection, holding the needle upright and tapping the side of the syringe before pressing the plunger to remove any air bubbles.

Once Hobb was settled, Blaine approached with the needle. He knelt beside the mahogany box, one hand on Hobb's shoulder, and he examined the needle in his hands. "Little while back, we discovered that torturing a zombie for interrogation is a bit of an art," Blaine explained. "I'm sure you boys at FG have your methods, but there's always that same drawback. You've got to keep them out of rage mode, or they stop feeling the pain. Then all your hard work goes to waste."

Hobb tried to say something around the mouthful of cotton that Carl had secured with duct tape, and Blaine made a shushing noise waving his fingers in front of Hobb's huge eyes that followed Blaine's every movement with terror. In his mind those eyes turned into Peyton's eyes, wide and horrified, and expecting death as his father terrorized her at City Hall. _Did she watch Dad's every move with that same helpless look?_ Blaine wondered. The man lying before him had taken part in that plan, and Blaine had no sympathy for him.

Pulling out his butterfly knife and opening it with a flourish, he passed the blade to Carl, who used it to slice open Hobb's sleeve before applying a rubber tourniquet. Then Carl gave Hobb a tearful grin, before moving out of Blaine's way and taking his place at the head of the coffin. Don E. and Major stood behind Blaine looking on -- Don E. nonchalantly polishing his nails aginst his shirt while Major shook his head and looked worried. If this plan worked, Hobb would be getting off far too easy in Blaine's opinion.

"So we started experimenting with this little cocktail of adrenaline suppressant drugs," Blaine continued. He flicked his finger against Hobb's arm to raise the vein. "We've got your beta blockers. We've got your selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors. It's a little bit of everything to cure what ails you... in a good zombie-sized dose," Blaine said.

He pushed the needle through the skin and into the vein, injecting the drug solution with the precision of a professional. When he'd still been dealing for Mr. Boss, Blaine had had more than a couple of junkies in his crew, and he'd tried plenty of drugs himself to staunch the pain he'd been fighting for years before that fateful utopium-filled night on Lake Washington. Blaine knew exactly how to give an injection. "The upshot is: no unwanted zombie rage to spoil all our good work," he told Hobb, who was still protesting against his gag.

He rose to his feet. "Now while that shot takes effect over the next... twenty minutes, give or take... you can have a little quiet time to remember all the things you want to tell me, while we confer amongst ourselves." Blaine's lips twisted into a sneer, and his eyes turned to pale blue ice that glinted at Hobb. "Then, when I come back, you can convince me not to test the limits of that shot before burying you alive in that overpriced hunk of wood, because if we have to do this the hard way I have no problem leaving you to turn Romero and rot... alone... in the dark... starving... no chance of reprieve. I wonder how long it takes a zombie to actually starve to death," Blaine finished. He nodded at Carl, and Carl closed the lid against Hobb's muffled shouts.

Blaine looked at the closed coffin for a beat before stalking away towards the stairs. "If that doesn't scare him into singing like a lark, I don't know what will," he told Major and Don E. under his breath as they hurried up the steps.

"I'm pretty sure someone's going to have to change his shorts before we put him in the freezer," Don E. sniggered as they reached the top. "I shoulda grabbed some beers," he mused, "That's how we passed the time when we had you stewing in there."

"Good to know. I'm not sure if I should be worried about how much better you've gotten at that routine," Major told Blaine with a pensive frown.

"It's all about the motivation, man," Don E. told him in a confidential whisper behind Blaine's back. He rolled his eyes towards Blaine and raised his brows for emphasis, pushing his lips out like there was more to say. Major looked away -- clutching the bagged microSD card still concealed in his pocket.

Four tables had been pushed together in the monochrome striped dining room, and a heavy extension cord and powerstrip supplied the electricity to power two televisions and a couple of Blu-Ray players. Three laptops sat at other stations at the table where Carl had joined Candy as well as Major's handful of trusted soldiers who were studying the surveillance footage with headphones. Blaine had been introduced to Jordan and Captain Seattle this morning, who were both busily perusing the footage while snacking on Hellfire Fries and sodas spiked with hot peppers. Major introduced the man who had collected the discs earlier as Justin Bell, and they shook hands before Justin told Major in a hushed voice, "We have a problem."

Blaine's spine stiffened, and he waited while Major asked Justin to show them what he'd found. "Should I have brought popcorn?" Don E. asked, and Blaine shook his head to tell him this wasn't the right time.

Justin took his seat in front of the laptop, and he dragged the time bar to the time he'd written on the post-it note in front of him. He paused the picture on two giggling teenage girls carrying a large bouquet of pink roses. The moment showed both girls' faces with crystal clarity. The girl carrying the bouquet had pulled her wavy raven hair back into a loose fishtail braid. Her creamy brown skin was devoid of makeup, and her cool brown eyes didn't quite match her bright smile. The blonde girl in the multicolored sweater beside her appeared slightly flushed, her long hair sweeping behind her betraying how quickly they were rushing towards the roof.

"It's Patrice Gold and Tatum Weckler," Justin told Major, and Major cursed in response.

"The name Weckler sounds familiar," Blaine said.

"Her father murdered a dominatrix who had filmed Floyd Baracus having a session with her. Peyton worked that case. The murder was on Carey Gold's orders, and Patrice is Carey's daughter. She carried the Aleutian flu to Seattle, and both of those girls were supposed to be frozen for their involvement with Carey's plots and at least one murder," Major explained. "They tried to kill Liv too."

Blaine remembered cooking breakfast while Peyton discussed the Weckler case with Liv. She'd been complaining about Weckler confessing too easily and something seeming fishy about the case. _So that's why it sounded familiar_ , Blaine thought to himself.

"Well, that's not good," Don E. said.

"So for all we know all the conspirators could be out and about?" Blaine demanded. He didn't like the idea of another thread in this tapestry of plots connecting back to Peyton, and he clenched his fist a few times as he wished for some excuse to take this out on Hobb downstairs. _Did he have a bigger hand in putting her in danger than I thought?_ Blaine wondered, as he looked back towards the kitchen.

"Only the minors -- mostly teenagers -- got frozen. Any adults found connected to the faction got a bullet between the eyes and a quick burial in an unmarked grave," Justin told him, and Don E. scoffed at Filmore-Graves for being just as ruthless as any crime lord.

"So staying at Filmore-Graves really was certain death. All the more reason for Hobb to risk coming with us," Blaine said.

"That shot you gave him... what was it really? You didn't really figure out a way to suppress rage mode, did you?" Major asked, and Blaine shrugged noncommittally.

"All it needs to do is make him feel drugged... maybe a little dizzy... maybe a little sleepy," Blaine replied, not really answering the question.

"And you're not the slightest bit interested in ruling over a zombie paradise?"

His first glimpse of Peyton, battered and bruised, propped up against the crisp, white hospital linens, flashed into Blaine's mind, and he closed his eyes and swallowed. His stomach twisted the same way it had when Liv had told him about the attack. "Dad pressed a button he shouldn't have touched," Blaine said. His temper burned like a fuse as he tried to imagine Peyton in his father's ideal zombie world. "And his idea of paradise isn't compatible with mine."

Understanding flickered behind Major's eyes, and Don E. clapped Blaine on the back. "Grab some chairs, I'll get us some beers, after all" Don E. said, and he swept past and waddled down the stairs to the fridge humming something to himself.

While Blaine pulled up a couple of chairs to sit, Major leaned over Justin and passed him the evidence bag. "I need you to copy this onto a thumbdrive for me, okay?" he told Justin in a hushed voice. His still uncertain eyes followed Blaine's movements for a moment, and Justin glanced to see for himself what had Major's attention before agreeing with a small nod--understanding without being told that this was to be a covert request.

Although within earshot, Candy and Carl seemed unable to hear through their headphones and too engrossed in their search for suspicious behavior or faces in the footage they were watching. "Then I need you to make stills of all the faces of Brother Love's followers from that footage, so we can cross-reference those with the security footage. I don't expect you to find anything useful from the... uh... second video on there. Don't play that one here."

"On it!" Justin assured him. They shared a fist bump.

"I'd offer you some leftovers, but the cupboard is bare until we get our next shipment of brains," Blaine told Major as he approached the table Blaine had prepared for them near the makeshift video hub. Blaine slung his leather jacket over the back of the chair, opening the cuffs of his black shirt and rolling up his sleeves.

"You're not the one who had to cancel two days' worth of reservations. Rich people do _not_ like to be told no," Don E. complained as he returned with three open, long-necked, amber bottles of ice cold beer wedged between his fingers. Blaine could see the mist of cold vapor rising up from the mouth of the bottle as he took one.

Blaine sighed. "Which you complained about all day... I was a little busy arranging service for a couple thousand zombies," Blaine reminded Don E., who rolled his eyes and crossed his arms in response. "I took you racing..." Blaine continued in his attempt to pacify his business partner, and Don E. chuckled, despite himself.

The three of them sat drinking and planning while they waited for the injection to take hold. When it was time Don E. collected Carl to join them, and Major took the flashdrive he'd requested from the spot where Justin had left it alongside his laptop. Don E. turned on a camera on a tripod and trained it on a chair that Crybaby Carl placed in the open space in front of the coffin. When he was ready, Carl and Major hauled Hobb out of the coffin and planted his ass in the chair.

Carl ripped off the tape and pulled the rag out of Hobb's mouth, while Blaine towered over the man with his arms crossed. Hobb eyed the table of ghetto torture equipment with a loud gulp, as Carl moved to stand beside it this time. The swelling and bruising from Don E.'s single punch were already nearly gone. "Let's start with what you meant about pardoning me? Tell me what Dad has got planned for me," Blaine ordered.

"He said you're going to perform a miracle, and it's going to earn you the death sentence from Chase Graves. I was supposed to ensure that Graves announced the death penalty for you. Next, your father would stir up enough unrest for the people to turn on Graves and take him out of power. Then I was to take over and pardon you," Hobb confessed. "You and I would be heroes in the public eye, and zombies would have the power to usher in a golden age."

"And what miracle would I be performing?" Blaine asked, but a sinking feeling in his gut told him he'd already connected the pieces correctly.

"If this miracle earns you the death penalty there's really only one possibility," Major interjected. "Your dad intends for you to make zombies." The look that passed between Major and Blaine was deadly serious.

Blaine turned back to Hobb. "It seems we have a lot to discuss," Blaine told him. The discussion lasted for hours, though Hobb did most of the talking. In the end Blaine ordered them to throw Hobb into the freezer with the warning that if he'd lied to them, they would unfreeze him and have a far less friendly discussion.

As Don E. locked up the freezer, Major pulled Blaine to the side. "Look, I'm not sure if I'm doing the right thing here, but maybe you should have this," he said. He pulled the flashdrive out of his pocket and handed it to Blaine, who held it up and examined it with both suspicion and curiousity.

"Hobb had the memory card from City Hall in his desk. I had Justin make a copy. Angus's message was meant for you, but honestly I don't know if you should watch it," Major explained, and Blaine looked at him with worry tracing his surprised features. "He scared the hell out of her... and it might just make things worse for you to see that, but -- since it's your dad -- maybe you can get something out of it that nobody else would. You should probably talk to Peyton before you decide," Major finished.

Blaine looked back at the memory stick, and the conflict showed through his eyes. Watching the video Clive had dictated to him a few days ago was the last thing he wanted to do, but Hobb hadn't had all the information they needed. _Dad could have accidentally revealed something in there... or it could just be another way of torturing me_ , he thought.

From just behind them Don E. glared at the way Blaine was looking at the flashdrive, his eyes dark and hard, and his mouth turned down in a worried frown as Blaine snapped his fist closed around the flashdrive and pounded up the stairs to get his jacket.

It was after one in the morning when Blaine quietly turned the key in the lock of the apartment door. Expecting the apartment to be dark and everyone in bed, he was surprised to find Peyton sitting alone on the living room couch with the lights lit. She raised her head at the sound of the door, and she let out a breath at the sight of him standing in the doorway with a bottle of Pinot Noir and a small zippered cooler. "Hey," he greeted in a breathless voice. "Sorry, I'm so late. Liv give you my message?"

Peyton nodded, and Blaine smiled and bustled into the kitchen to put away the wine and the cooler full of brains. Peyton rose and headed towards the kitchen to join him. She tugged at her nightshirt as she went, and she stood by the island, fiddling with her sleeve. "Major, Don E., and yours truly may have finally stumbled onto something helpful," Blaine announced with more excitement than he actually felt. "We managed to uncover an entire faction inside Filmore-Graves that's aligned with my dad, and we've been questioning their apparent leader trying to find out what Dad has planned next," he explained, trying to keep everything in the best light.

"I've got some news too," Peyton told him, and Blaine peered at her from over the refrigerator door. "I got a call just after you left," she said, pretending to be nonchalant, but her eyes darted furtively away. Blaine bristled at the sound of false calm in her voice, and her smile quavered as she continued. "Floyd is planning to resign," she announced, and Blaine closed the door to the fridge and leaned against it, clutching his forehead before running his hand through his hair. "They want to make me acting, interim mayor until they can hold another special election."

Blaine exhaled loudly, and Peyton crossed her arms over her ribs. "I think I know the next link in your dad's plan. They want me to do a press conference. If I go on and show off that I'm still injured, still human, we can draw him out to attack me," she told him, and Blaine looked at her with his brow furrowed in extreme misery. His eyes filled with pain as though the very sight of her was a sword stabbing into his heart. Peyton recognized the expression from her long night in the hospital. _Like I'm made of knives_ , she thought.


End file.
